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The Folketing (Danish: Folketinget, Danish pronunciation: [ˈfʌlɡ̊ətˢeŋˀ]), is the national parliament of Denmark. The name literally means "The people's thing"—that is, the people's governing assembly. The Folketing consists of 179 representatives; 175 from Denmark, 2 from Greenland and a further 2 from the Faroe Islands. It is located in Christiansborg Palace, on the islet of Slotsholmen in central Copenhagen.
Members are elected by proportional representation: 135 by the D'Hondt method and 40 by the Sainte-Laguë method. The most recent general election took place on 15 September 2011.
From 1849 to 1953 the Folketing was one of the two houses in the bicameral parliament known as the Rigsdag; the other house was known as the Landsting. Since both houses, in principle, had equal power, the terms "upper house" and "lower house" were not used. The difference between the houses was voter representation.
The Folketing was elected by common vote and consisted mainly of independent farmers, traders, and merchants as well as the educated classes (i.e., the liberal forces of society). From 1866 to 1915 the right of vote for the Landsting was restricted to the wealthiest, and some of its members were appointed by the king, thus it predominantly represented the landed gentry and other conservatives. From 1915 the Landsting was also elected by common vote, although indirectly and with a higher age limit than for the Folketing. During the next decades, law-making mainly took place in the Folketing and the Landsting came to be regarded as a superfluous rubber stamp.
In 1953 the people by popular vote adopted a revised constitution. Among the changes was the elimination of the Landsting and the introduction of a unicameral parliament, known only as the Folketing. Christiansborg Palace has been the domicile of parliament since 1849. The palace is located in the heart of Copenhagen.
Since parties need only 2% of the vote to get a seat, several parties win seats, making it all but impossible for one party to win the 90 seats required for a majority. No party has won an outright majority in the Folketing since 1901. All Danish governments since then have been coalitions or one-party minority governments. For this reason, a long-standing provision in the constitution allows a government to begin rule without getting a vote of confidence, as long as it does not lose a vote of no confidence during the parliamentary term. One consequence is that unlike in most other parliamentary systems, a cabinet must usually piece together a majority for each piece of legislation.
The Social Democrats, Social Liberal Party and the Socialist People's Party form a three-party government. The new parliament convened on 4 October, the first Tuesday of the month.
The former Prime Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, led a centre-right minority government consisting of the Liberal Party (Venstre) and the Conservative People's Party. This coalition government worked with regular parliamentary support from the national conservative Danish People's Party and often gained the necessary 90th seat for majority in the Folketing through negotiations with either the sole MP from the Christian Democrats, Ørum-Jørgensen[1] or another MP outside parties, Christmas Møller, both elected in 2007 as conservative MPs and having defected since then.
Since the 2007 elections, the Liberal Alliance (previously Ny Alliance) have gained momentum in opinion polls, and since early 2010, the governing coalition have not been able to gather a majority in the polls without the support of the Alliance. The continuing rise in the polls is to an extent the result of the internal crisis in the Conservative People's Party over the leadership Lene Espersen[2] and the continuing debate over a lack of "true" liberal/conservative ideology in government policy.[3]
On 13 January 2011, the continuing turmoil within the Conservative group in the Folketing caused Lene Espersen to resign as political leader of the party and focus on her role as Minister of Foreign Affairs.[4] A leadership election between Brian Mikkelsen, the Minister of Economic and Business Affairs and Lars Barfoed, the Justice Minister, was widely expected,[5] but on 14 January the Conservative group in the Folketing unanimously elected Barfoed as their new political leader.[6]
The Social Democrats under the leadership of Helle Thorning-Schmidt have enjoyed continuing majorities in opinion polls since late 2009 and hopes to form a centre-left government coalition consisting of the Socialist People's Party and the Social Liberal Party with parliamentary support from the small Red-Green Alliance.[7][8]
Both Margrethe Vestager (Social Liberal Party) and Villy Søvndal (Socialist People's Party) pledged their support to Thorning-Schmidt before the election.[9] But there has been considerable debate about the future politics of this coalition, mainly because the Social Liberal Party demands a more liberal economic agenda. Also on immigration issues there are political differences between the three coalition parties. This has led some observers to believe that the Social Liberal Party will not join a government coalition but instead opt to be a part of the parliamentary support of a new, centre-left government.[10] In the event the Social Liberals did join the new three-party coalition government formed on 3 October.
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