European elections: Climate and Ukraine were key to radical left’s strong showing in Nordic countries

By Anne-Françoise Hivert
Jun 15, 2024

No polling institute had seen it coming. The wave of red and green at the polls in the Nordic countries on Sunday, June 9, is all the more remarkable in that it was accompanied by a decline of the far right, bucking the trend in Europe and the latest elections in Sweden and Finland, which saw the right return to power with the support of the nationalists. In Denmark, the Social Democrats govern in a coalition with two center-right parties.

In Helsinki, the Left Alliance was the first to spring a surprise on Sunday evening. It came second, behind Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s National Coalition Party (24.8%). Up 10.4 points on 2019, the radical left-wing environmental party won 17.3% of the vote, its best performance since its creation in 1990. The Greens lost some support but retained 11.3% of the vote, while the far-right True Finns party, which is part of the government coalition, came sixth with 7.6%.

An hour later, there was a new twist in Copenhagen: The Socialist People’s Party took 17.4% of the vote – again, its best result since it was founded in 1959. It came out on top, ahead of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats (15.6%). In combination with the scores of the Unity List (7%) and The Alternative (2.7%), the radical left gained 27.1% of the vote. The sovereigntists of the Danish People’s Party dropped to 6.4% and the new nationalist formation, the Denmark Democrats, obtained just 7.4% of the vote.

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