Denmark

The Unity List remains Copenhagen’s largest party

Wednesday 26 November 2025, by Jonathan Simmel

Local and regional elections have been held in Denmark, and the Unity List [known internationally as the Red Green Alliance] has once again become Copenhagen’s largest party. The Social Democrats lost the mayoralty to the Socialist People’s Party and lost ground in 86 of 98 municipalities. The results clearly reflect the national political scene, where the Social Democrats chose to form a majority government with two bourgeois parties in 2022.

On Tuesday, 18 November, elections were held for municipal and regional councils in Denmark. International media have already described the ‘battle for Copenhagen,’ where the Social Democrats lost the mayoralty for the first time in 123 years.

In the last election in 2021, the Unity List became the capital’s largest party with 24.6% of the vote. This contrasted with the historically large Social Democratic Party, which had fallen to 17.2%. At that time, the Social Democrats got away with just a scare and were still able to take the mayor’s office with support from the left.

In August 2024, the Prime Minister announced a government reshuffle and appointed the former Social Democratic mayor of Copenhagen as a new minister. Instead, Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil (former Member of Parliament for the Unity List) resigned as minister to become the Social Democrats’ new top candidate in Copenhagen. The hope for the Social Democrats and the Prime Minister was that a more well-known Social Democrat would be able to revive the party in Copenhagen.

Meanwhile, opinion polls were moving in the opposite direction, and a clear picture was once again emerging with the Unity List as Copenhagen’s largest party. And with the support of the Alternative (Green Party) and the Socialist People’s Party (reformist socialist party), we were close to achieving an absolute majority together.

The Unity List clearly stated that if we became the largest party and the ‘red bloc’ could form a majority, we would field a candidate for mayor of Copenhagen. The Socialist People’s Party then made the same statement. Several opinion polls showed a very close race, and the longer the election campaign went on, the more panicked the Social Democrats’ rhetoric became. For example, they sent a letter to all Copenhagen residents with a brief presentation of their own candidate and clear warnings against the policies of the Socialist People’s Party and the Unity List.

The Unity List has also been treated harshly in the conservative media, a clear sign that certain groups felt threatened by our successes. Denmark’s second largest tabloid newspaper, BT, published articles against the Unity List almost daily. Everything from our leading candidate Line Barfod’s participation in the Moscow Festival in 1985 to previous cases of support for Palestine, Line Barfod’s private housing situation and, three days before election day, an article about the Unity List wanting to introduce ‘Marxist training’ in the party, which was interpreted as anti-democratic with references to the Soviet Union. A good example of the attitude of the media and the Social Democrats when the left threatens their power.

Unfortunately, it did not quite work out, as the left to the left of the Social Democrats only won 26 seats, two seats short of a majority. However, the Unity List remained the largest party with 13 seats, followed by the Socialist People’s Party with 10 seats.

Since the Social Democrats have refused to nominate anyone other than themselves, the parties ‘around’ them have formed a coalition across the right and left wings, with SF as the new mayor, thus pushing the Social Democrats out in the cold after 123 years as mayor of the country’s capital.

But the really big news is actually in the rest of the country and at the national level. Here, Copenhagen is just one example of the Social Democrats’ decline.

The Social Democrats are losing ground in 86 of 98 municipalities, with a total of 5.2%, but they are still the country’s largest party with a total of 23.2%. However, the message is clear, and they are losing the mayoralty in a number of Denmark’s larger cities, including ‘classic Social Democratic cities’. Part of this is, of course, due to local politics, but the results clearly reflect the national political scene, where the Social Democrats chose to form a majority government with two bourgeois parties in 2022. All three of these parties are experiencing a sharp decline. Unfortunately, it seems that voters are largely turning to right-wing parties. There has thus been an overall shift to the right on the political scene.

The Unity List largely maintained the status quo, with a few new municipalities and a few lost municipalities, a total decline of 0.2% to a total of 7.1% of the votes.

20 November 2025

Translated by International Viewpoint from Internationalen.se.


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Jonathan Simmell is a leading member of the SAP, Danish section of the Fourth International.


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