People vote in the election to the Logting, the Parliament of the Faroe Islands, in Torshavn, on March 26, 2026. Photo by ﾁlvur Haraldsen / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP
Copenhagen: Negotiations to form a Danish government following this week's general election will formally open on Friday, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's Social Democratic party, which came out on top in the vote, announced.
The coalition-building process was expected to take weeks, as neither the left nor the right bloc won a majority in Tuesday's election that left parliament deeply splintered.
Frederiksen, whose Social Democrats registered their weakest score since 1903 but remained the biggest party by far, was tasked by King Frederik X on Wednesday with leading the negotiations.
She will on Friday meet with the four other parties on the left, two parties on the right, and the centrist Moderates party which emerged as kingmaker.
The eight parties -- out of the 12 represented in parliament -- together represent 129 of the 179 seats in parliament, a large majority.
The king had on Wednesday asked Frederiksen to lead negotiations to form a government with her Social Democrats, the socialist Green Left and the Social Liberal Party, after she proposed such a possibility.
That potential coalition would hold a minority in parliament and require broad informal backing, which explains the wider group invited to the negotiations.
But Moderates leader Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who will play a central role as kingmaker and who has said he would like to see a cross-bloc coalition, swiftly sounded a pessimistic note.
"A government made up of the Social Democrats, the Green Left and the Social Liberals -- I have a hard time seeing how we could provide parliamentary backing," he said.
Following the previous general election in 2022, the negotiations to form a government lasted 42 days.
