Voters begin to drift from Danish People’s Party

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Monday March 20, 2006 01:45 by Coilín ÓhAiseadha Máigh Nuad, Co. Cill Dara 086 060 3818

Islamophobic party sees recent gains fade

The anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party, which has seen gains in popularity following the attacks of 11 September and the controversy about cartoons of Muhammad published last year, has lost 2.7% of voters' support in the course of the last month.

This is one of the results from an opinion poll conducted by Catinét Research for the Danish news agency Ritzau between 13 and 17 March.

The Danish People’s Party's member of parliament Louise Frevert is one of a number of Danish politicians who have played a key role in inflaming Muslim concerns with a comment on her website that “the Muslim menace ... can be compared with a tumour which we know will kill us, if we don’t find and annihilate it before it spreads.”

Please read my translation from an original Danish article below.

Voters begin to drift from Danish People’s Party

The Muhammad crisis has made an impression on the Social Democrats. At the same time, the Danish People’s Party is seeing its gains fade away.

The Danish People’s Party is beginning to lose voters for the first time during the Muhammad crisis.

An opinion poll conducted by Catinét Research for [the Danish news agency] Ritzau, shows that even though the Danish People’s Party is still doing better than at the election, the party has lost more than half of its gains over the last month.

S stands unchanged
Thus, the Danish People’s Party would get 15.1 percent of the votes if there were an election today, as against 17.8 percent at the same point in February. In the election in 2005, the Liberal-Conservative government’s support party got 13.3 percent.

The Social Democrats stand to take 21.8 percent of the votes – or precisely the same as in February. In the election, the party got 25.8 percent.

Even though the Liberals, Conservatives and Danish People’s Party together lose a single mandate to 96 – as against 97 in February – that’s still two more than the voters gave them in the election.

Voters drift from V
Among the government parties, the voters continue to drift from the Liberals, who would now get 27.3 percent of the votes, as against 28.3 percent in February – and 29 percent in the election.

The Conservatives advance to 11.1 percent of the votes, as against 8.1 percent in February and 10.3 percent in the election.

...

Catinét Research interviewed 1,095 persons in the period between 13 and 17 March about how they would vote if there were an election tomorrow. About 17 percent of those asked were at this point in doubt about choice of party.

/ritzau/

Read the original article in Danish:
http://politiken.dk/VisArtikel.iasp?PageID=444110

The article above was posted on Politiken’s website at 11:20 am on 19 March 2006.

Please see also the following related article:
Danish PM meets ambassadors to address anti-Muslim hatred