in World News Surprise! Greenland election goes Trump’s way
By Monica Showalter
Greenland’s residents certainly didn’t do what Denmark and the rest of Europe wanted them to do at their elections Tuesday, which was to vote for euro-leftists.
Instead, they did this, as BBC reported:
Greenland’s centre-right opposition has won a surprise general election victory – in a vote dominated by independence and US President Donald Trump’s pledge to take over the semi-autonomous territory.
The Democratic party, which favours a gradual approach to independence from Denmark – achieved around 30% of the vote, near-complete results show.
“Greenland needs us to stand together in a time of great interest from outside,” party leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen told local media. “There is a need for unity, so we will enter into negotiations with everyone.”
His party will now have to negotiate with other parties in order to form a coalition.
That must have shocked Europe, which up until now has scorned President Trump’s offer to buy Greenland and take it off Denmark’s hands. “Greenland is not for sale,” Danish officials have sniffed.
Greenlanders’ election result, though, suggests a little more flexibility.
The guys who won were center-right, and usually, that’s a good enough result from the U.S. point of view, particularly if it means some distancing from the EU, but get a load at who seems set to come in second, according to the BBC:
Another opposition party, Naleraq, which is looking to immediately kick off the independence process and forge closer ties with the US, is on course for second place with almost a quarter of the vote.
Support for Naleraq was boosted ahead of the vote by the decision of one of Greenland’s most popular young politicians, Aki-Matilda Hoegh-Dam, to switch from one of the ruling parties. She came second only to Democrats leader Jens Frederik Nielsen in the popular vote.
The winning Democrats (no, not the donkey kind) were an upstart party themselves whose numbers grew sharply from the last election cycle, according to the BBC.
But the second-place finishers are even more upstart-ish as well as dramatic in their gains — they’re pro-independence and pro-U.S., which sounds like they could agree to join the U.S. given some time, particularly since they are led by Greenland’s young people among the island’s 40,000 voters.
That suggests that there’s a problem out there with Denmark’s intrusive rule, which has obviously had some kind of influence in overbearing fishing regulations, which is the one factor reportedly driving the vote outcome.
BBC has a good backgrounder about this, here.
When you think about it, it seems like it must be the big one.