From his base at Asiatisk Plads in Copenhagen, Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen constantly travels on missions across most of the globe – but he still manages to be an active front man for the Moderates in Christiansborg.
Several party members work around him in the role of ministers with responsibility for e.g. cultural policy, climate policy, the teaching and research sector and the elderly area. They help set agendas and make the Moderates a visible party.
When politicians from the other parties dream of new government constellations and speculate on letter combinations, then who is at the center? Yes, Løkke and the Moderates actually do that.
Does it look familiar? Yes, because in the past the top politicians from the Radical Left possessed exactly the same eminent ability to gain influence and place themselves in such important positions that the red and blue bloc constantly tried to win them over.
Today, Løkke has settled heavily on that position, and that is perhaps the most important observation in connection with the Moderates’ annual meeting this weekend: Løkke has become the man in the middle.
With Martin Lidegaard in the lead, the Radicals obviously don’t just sit on their hands and watch. They struggle to make themselves playable. They have joined the KLAR alliance together with the Conservative and Liberal Alliance on one side, while they nurture relations with the Social Democrats and SF on the other. But it’s uphill for Lidegaard.
On the right, there are not many bourgeois politicians who seriously believe that the Radicals will emerge as true partners. And on the left, SF leader Pia Olsen Dyhr has not forgotten the traumatic years when the party was thoroughly humiliated by the Radicals during the short life of the SRSF government.
The S-toppen has not forgotten that period either. And they also remember all too well how Martin Lidegaard at the 12th hour in December 2022 jumped out of the government negotiations shortly before the formation of the SVM government, and today none of the leading Social Democrats have much of a desire to become dependent on it small radical parliamentary group.
When the other party leaders observe Lars Løkke Rasmussen, they can certainly list many reservations towards him and his party, both politically and personally. But the point is that they want to do business with him and that they are actively courting him.
Most recently, Pia Olsen Dyhr opened the possibility that Lars Løkke Rasmussen and the Moderates might form part of a red government constellation following the next election. In an interview in the Alting, she emphasized that he has changed course politically in crucial political areas, and that he has actually gone through an actual reformation.
But invitations to Løkke also go out regularly from blue block. Here is the hope that the Moderates – together with the Left – will return home to the bourgeois camp when the SVM government is one day in the past. Their analysis is that Løkke will be very difficult to get around if they are to win government power.
Does this mean that everything is ideal happiness in the Moderates? No, of course not.
The SVM government has not been a popular success, to put it mildly, and in Christiansborg only a few people believe that it will continue following the next election. It is also slow to pave the way for the large-scale reforms which, according to Løkke, must help to renew the welfare society and provide the individual citizen with a better service.
The Moderates hope that the health structure commission under the leadership of Jesper Fisker will prepare a proposal that can be used as a starting point for making a profound reform of a health sector that is challenged on many fronts. But until now the SVM government has not been an engine of reform.
In addition, the media and the public have repeatedly been able to ascertain that Løkke cannot have spent very many minutes screening the party’s parliamentary candidates prior to the last election. Names such as Kristian Klarskov, Jon Stephensen and Mike Fonseca have all been in violent stormy weather, just like e.g. Nanna Gotfredsen has messed around with shit cases in full public view.
Having said that, it does not change the actual conditions in the iron industry, and the fact is that Lars Løkke Rasmussen has regained his place as one of the most central actors at Christiansborg.
When the other party leaders take turns wooing Løkke, it is a huge advantage for him, both when in the short term it is regarding maintaining maximum political influence, and when in the longer term it is regarding making the party a long-term sustainable project. The longer Løkke can maintain his and the party’s central position, the greater the possibility that the party can take root, develop new talents and one day secure an heir to the leadership position in the party.
Today, the Moderates are still 100 percent dependent on the founder.
Even if Jakob Engel-Schmidt is successful as a talented and visible minister of culture, he will hardly be able to save the party if Løkke were to hit a roof tile tomorrow. But as the party takes hold in Christiansborg, and later perhaps also in the European Parliament and around the country’s local councils, people like Engel-Schmidt will grow further, just as new names will join and strengthen the party.
This is the decisive perspective for Lars Løkke Rasmussen, and it is also the reason why he hardly dreams of getting an international post now. If that happens, he risks the Moderates falling apart.
2024-03-14 21:42:14
#Analysis #woos #Lars #Løkke
