Danish election heading toward nail-biting finish

By JAN M. OLSEN
Associated Press

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen’s Social Democrats won the most votes in Denmark’s election Tuesday but it was unclear whether the center-left bloc that backs her government in Parliament would retain its majority. With 97% of votes counted, the center-left bloc was just one seat short of a majority, a result which would leave former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen as kingmaker. His newly formed centrist party won 9% of the vote, according to official results.Frederiksen was forced to call the election earlier this month amid the fallout from her government’s contentious decision to cull millions of minks as a pandemic response measure. The cull and chilling images of mass graves of minks have haunted Frederiksen since 2020 and eventually led to cracks in the center-left bloc.