Denmark Elects Record 44% Women to Parliament With Female PM Set to Win Another Term

(Bloomberg) -- Danes elected a record number of women into the national parliament in this week’s general election, which is also set to pave the way for another term for the Nordic country’s female prime minister.

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According to a tally by newswire Ritzau, 44.1% of the 179 newly elected lawmakers are women. That’s well above the previous record of 39.1% in 2019 and represents the highest absolute number over the years. The official figures are yet to be published by Statistics Denmark, which is conducting an extra count after one of the closest elections in Danish history.

While the Nordic country was a pioneer in gender equality in politics, it only got its first female prime minister in 2011, when Helle Thorning-Schmidt won a four-year term. In Tuesday’s elections, the second woman to steer the Danish government, Mette Frederiksen, unexpectedly secured a majority and is expected to stay as leader of the country of 5.9 million. In contrast, neighboring Sweden got its first female prime minister in 2021, while Finland had broken that glass ceiling in 2003.

Danish women won the right to vote in parliamentary elections in 1915, 66 years after the kingdom introduced a democratic constitution. In 1924, it became the world’s first democracy to have a female minister when Nina Bang was named as minister for education.

Denmark is officially ruled by Queen Margrethe II, the country’s first female monarch in six centuries.

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