Local elections in Denmark: We may have our first elected islamic infiltrator

Sikandar Siddique, about whom I blogged a week ago, was elected tuesday to the city council of our capital, Copenhagen.

In Odense Anna Rytter was elected to the city council for the communists/Unity List. She is, as far as I know the first Danish convert to Islam to get in.

Other notable results of the elections:

• The Liberals had a comparatively weak showing - did not get the 50 mayoral posts (out of 98) hoped for, and hav so far only been able to pick up 2 of the 5 regions. Negotiations are still going on over the Capital Region. In addition, they lost the mayoral post in Århus, Denmark´s 2nd biggest city, and had a weaker-than-hoped-for showing in Copenhagen.
• The Social Democrats had a better showing, though they didnt attain their goal of dominating Denmark´s 4 biggest cities. They maintained power in Copenhagen and Ålborg, re-gained Århus, but lost Odense.
• The Conservatives had a good showing. Vote tallies were about on the level they used to, but the big news is, that they regained the mayoral post in Odense, after it had been in the possession of the Social Democrats for 68 years.
• For the Socialist People´s Party, the elections meant the loss of 4 out of 5 mayoral posts.
• For the small parties represented nationally, the merger of many small constituencie meant, that they are now represented in many places where they havent had influence before.
• At the same time, the slow death of the parties that emerged from the Watershed Election of 1973 continues. The Center Democrats failed to gain any seats, the Progress Party only retained one of its five seats, and for the Christian Democrats, their chairman didnt get elected.
• Finally, many of the formerly numerous local lists have failed to get in in the enlargened constituencies.

The big news about this election is, however, that we are seeing a trend towards more competitive elections. The multi-decade social democratic domination of Århus was broken at the last election, and this time around, social democratic strongholds in Odense and Svendborg were broken (after 68 and 51 years of SD rule, respectively).

Henrik