Danish rightwing leader asked to form government after Frederiksen fails to form coalition

The king of Denmark has asked a centre-right politician to try to form a new government after the prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has failed to put together a ruling coalition.

The announcement on Friday night shook the political establishment as Frederiksen has been a staple of Danish politics for decades. Her left-leaning party, the Social Democrats, won the plurality of votes in parliamentary elections in March.

But despite winning the most votes, it was the Social Democrats’ worst electoral showing since 1903 and no party won a majority.

Frederiksen has since tried to form a left-leaning government with the support of Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s centre-right moderates. He is seen as a kingmaker owing to his position in the middle between Frederiksen and Troels Lund Poulsen, the chair of the centre-right liberal party.

Troels Lund Poulsen (L), the then defence minister, with Mette Frederiksen in September. Photograph: Emil Helms/EPA

However, Frederiksen struggled to gather the support of Denmark’s increasingly fragmented parties and on Friday night, Rasmussen, the country’s former foreign minister, walked out of negotiations and threw his weight behind Poulsen.

King Frederik then asked Poulsen to try to build a new government. On Friday, the king issued a statement requesting that Poulsen “lead the negotiations with a view to forming a government”, without the participation of the Social Democrats and moderates.

Poulsen will be given the job of marshalling a coalition of rightwing parties to form a new government – a fragile process that could take weeks. Already, the attempt to build a government has been the longest in Danish history.

Danish politics has skewed increasingly right in recent years, with the March elections showing gains for several rightwing parties. The traditional far-right party, the Danish People’s party, had a particularly strong showing, tripling its votes from the last election to 9.1%.