Far Right in Denmark boosted by outcry over cartoons

[Perun]

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...-2-2006_pg4_13

COPENHAGEN: The Far Right in Denmark has been boosted by the international outcry over the blasphemous cartoons, according to a poll on Sunday in Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper which first published the offending drawings.

The extreme right Danish People’s Party (PPD), the liberal-conservative government’s only parliamentary ally, has registered a surge in popularity with 17.8 percent of voting intentions or 32 seats, against 13.3 percent and 24 seats in elections this time last year.

The Liberal Party of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen was credited with 28.3 percent (0.7 percent down) and the Conservative Party 9.4 percent (-0.9 percent) in the poll carried out on February 6 to 8.

The right-wing bloc in parliament has gained overall from the crisis, increasing its share of voting intentions to 55.5 percent and 100 of the 179 seats in the single-chamber parliament against 42.3 percent and 75 seats for the centre-left opposition.

In the February 2005 elections, the right won 52.6 percent of the vote and 94 seats, against 44.4 percent and 81 seats for the opposition. The Social Democratic party, the main opposition grouping, has come out of the crisis severely weakened, according to the poll, with a fall of 4.2 percent of support, giving it 21.6 percent of voting intentions and nine fewer seats than the 38 it won in the last elections. Analysts attributed the fall in support to Social Democratic criticism of Rasmussen’s handling of the crisis.

In the furore over the cartoons Denmark has seen in the Middle East its embassies torched, its flag burned, its products boycotted and have been the focus of violent demonstrations in which a number of protestors have been killed.