Liberal Alliance

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Liberal Alliance Liberal Alliance
Leader	Leif Mikkelsen
Founded	7 May 2007
Headquarters	Nybrogade 10, 3.sal DK-1203 København K
Ideology	Liberalism
International affiliation	None
European affiliation	None
European Parliament Group	None
Official colours	Purple
Website
www.liberalalliance.dk
Politics of Denmark Political parties Elections

Liberal Alliance is a Danish political party, founded on 7 May 2007 under the name New Alliance (Danish: Ny Alliance). Its founding members were Naser Khader (MP), Anders Samuelsen (MEP) — both former members of the Danish Social Liberal Party — and Gitte Seeberg (MEP), a former member of the Conservative People's Party. It is the country's first new major party in the past decade.^[1] In the 2007 elections, the party got 5 out of 179 seats in parliament, a major stepdown from earlier opinion polls. As of January 5, 2009, only two members of parliament remain. On August 27, 2008, the party changed its name to Liberal Alliance.^[2]

Politics

The party originally opposed the influence of the right-wing Danish People's Party on the Government, as well as the alleged left-leaning opposition strategy of the Social Liberal Party. In 2008, the party moved somewhat to the right, emphasizing the liberalist parts of its programme, and changed its name from New Alliance into Liberal Alliance.

The party has proposed a tax reform reducing income tax to a fixed rate of 40%, a "realistic immigration policy and humane refugee policy with an emphasis on democratic integration", a pro-European Union policy while strengthening Denmark's position, an increase in foreign aid to 1% of GDP, and reforms of state schools and the national health service. It supports green energy.^[3][1]

On 30 August, 2007, the party presented a more detailed programme of their political standpoints^[4]. Some of the points in this programme include:^[5] Longer mandatory school-attendance, with free food and homework-aid; European Marshall Plan to the Middle East; increasing foreign aid to 1% of GDP; increased focus on prevention in public health, with lower prices on healthy foods; and an exhaustive reform related to immigration and asylum politics. The full party program is available on the party's website.

Denmark

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Denmark

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Ideology

The original New Alliance considered itself a centre party, "taking the best values of social liberalism and social conservatism".^[6] The meaning of the latter is the same as compassionate conservatism in English-speaking countries (not to be mistaken with the morally right-wing social conservatism of US politics).

By using these two terms, New Alliance positioned itself mid-way between the former parties of the three founding members. Social liberalism is, of course, the official ideology of the Social Liberal Party, whereas "social conservatism" is a term sometimes invoked by members of the Conservative Party who stress the support of welfare society, such as Liberal Alliance co-founder Gitte Seeberg.

After Gitte Seeberg left the party, the "social conservatism" part was dropped, and the party name was changed into Liberal Alliance. However, there were still considerable ideological differences among the two remaining founders, and it was not until Naser Khader was replaced by Anders Samuelsen that the party could get a clear-cut liberalistic identity.

Criticism

In the earliest days of the party's existence, the party was accused of populism or personalism, still lacking stances on many topics and based on the popularity of Naser Khader.^[7] Critics have also pointed to the fact that all major parties in Denmark advocate social liberal policies, at least economically.

A poll conducted by independent analysts for the journal A4 Weekly, issued by the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions, concluded that "opinions of the New Alliance's voters bristle in all directions" and that party supporters' attitudes were "very close to the Danish average voter on a great number of issues". Political commentator Henrik Qvortrup, former spin doctor of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, claimed: "These are really Mr and Mrs Denmark's points of views". Another analyst, Henrik Dahl, expected the Liberal Alliance will encounter problems when trying to formulate a detailed party programme, inevitably being unable to render all supporters satisfied.^[8]

Members

Immediately after its creation, Liberal Alliance had a surge of members. 24 hours after the announcement of the party, more than 12,000 had registered on the party website. Three days later 16,000 had registered and 8,000 of these had paid the membership fee.^[9] For comparison the parent party Det Radikale Venstre had an estimated 9,500 paying members as of 2006.

Abdicating members

On January 29, 2008, founding member Gitte Seeberg left the party in protest against the party's status as a right-wing party, which conflicted with her own desire to form a centrist party rejecting the influence of the Danish People's Party.^[10] A week later, on February 5, another of the party's members of parliament, Malou Aamund, left the party and joined the government-coalition party, Venstre.^[11] On June 24, 2008 Jørgen Poulsen was excluded from the parliamentary group, though not from the party itself. ^[12] On September 1, 2008 the party regained a third mandate in the parliament, as Gitte Seeberg was appointed secretary general of the Danish branch of WWF. Her mandate was given to former deputy mayor of Slagelse, Villum Christensen. ^[13]. On 5 January, 2009, founding member and party-leader Naser Khader left the party, citing that he did no longer believe in it^[14]. At the time, Anders Samuelsen was scheduled to take over leadership of the party later that month. The same day, Villum Christensen expressed doubt on his future in the party.^[15]

Economy

The party received notable sums from the investment bank Saxo Bank (500,000 Danish kroner) and the businessman Lars Kolind (100,000 kroner). As of 22 May, the party has seven paid employees and a number of volunteers. The party has announced it will not hire additional employees until it has more funds.^[16]

Electoral nomination

To comply with Danish election law, and to be able to stand for elections the Liberal Alliance had to gather 19,185 signatures of supporters on special forms, the number being equivalent to one parliamentary seat in the Folketing. Each completed form had to be certified with the civil registry offices of municipalities before being collectively handed in to the Ministry of the Interior.

In the event of an election being called before the Liberal Alliance had finished its nomination process, the minor party Centre Democrats offered to let the Liberal Alliance put forward candidates on their lists.^[17] The Liberal Alliance did not take any stand on this offer, however.

On one occasion, on 12 May in Horsens, the three leading figures of the party managed to collect over 2,000 signatures in one day.^[18] On 21 May the party reported they were half-way, having gathered in 10,000 signatures.^[19]

The party finally completed its nomination process on 29 June by being accepted on the Ministry of the Interior's list of parties able to stand for elections to the Folketing after handing in the 21,516 required signatures.^[20]

European Parliament

With the defection of MEPs Gitte Seeberg and Anders Samuelsen, the Conservatives and Det Radikale Venstre are effectively left without representatives in the European Parliament. The two MEPs will, however, stay in their factions (the Conservative EPP-ED and the Liberal ALDE respectively). The Liberal Alliance has announced it would join the ALDE group after future EU elections.^[21]

Young Alliance

On February 23, 2008, a youth branch to the party was formed by 21 people under the name of Ung Alliance (English: Young Alliance).^[22]

References

External links

• Official web site (Danish)
• Popular MP to create own party, Copenhagen Post 7 May 2007.
• PM's majority down to two seats, Copenhagen Post 11 May 2007.
• "Muslim Politician Could Be Surprise Kingmaker" By Anna Reimann, Spiegel 7 Nov 2007

v • d • e Political parties in Denmark Bracketed numbers indicate numbers of seats in the respective parliaments. Folketingetet Liberal Party (47) · Social Democrats (45) · Danish People's Party (25) · Socialist People's Party (23) · Conservative People's Party (18) · Danish Social Liberal Party (9) · Red-Green Alliance (4) · Liberal Alliance (3)  · Siumut (Greenland) (1) · Inuit Ataqatigiit (Greenland) (1) · Union Party (Faroe Islands) (1) · Republican Party (Faroe Islands) (1) · Independents (1) European Parliament Social Democrats (4) · Venstre (3) · Socialist People's Party (2)  · Danish People's Party (2) · Conservative People's Party (1) · People's Movement against the EU (1) Politics of Denmark · Portal:Politics · List of political parties by country