Danes get immigration ministry

Nyrup Rasmussen's gamble on a snap election backfired

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (CNN) -- Denmark's new centre-right Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has named his government -- which includes a key new ministry of immigration.

Liberal Party leader Fogh Rasmussen, 48, who swept to power after a stunning election win against the Social Democrat government last week, is to govern in a coalition with the Conservatives.

On Tuesday Fogh Rasmussen went to Amalienborg royal palace in Copenhagen to formally present his new cabinet to Queen Margrethe II.

The cabinet will consist of 12 Liberals and six Conservatives, including five women.

The post of finance minister goes to Thor Pedersen, a former Liberal interior minister, with the foreign affairs portfolio allotted to Per Stig Moeller, a former Conservative environment minister.

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But the most striking move is the creation of a ministry of "refugees, immigration and integration" to be headed by Liberal MEP Bertel Haarder, 57.

Haarder, a former education minister, is seen not so much a rightist as an old-school nationalist keenly interested in preserving Danish values and culture. He will also be minister for EU relations.

Immigration had been the top issue in a bitter election campaign with a surge in support anti-immigrant Danish People's Party, which almost doubled its representation in parliament to 22 MPs.

Analysts said it was Fogh Rasmussen's playing of the immigration card in the election campaign that ensured his victory.

Responding to criticism he ran a "negative" election campaign, Rasmussen said recently that the immigration debate had been artificially "kept under wraps" for the past 15 to 20 years, but as PM he would do his best to implement policies that were balanced and fair with respect for the individual.

The Liberals trounced the Social Democrats of outgoing Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen -- no relation -- in last Tuesday's general election for the first time since the 1920s.

The new coalition is a minority in parliament and will have to depend on parliamentary support from either the Social Democrats or the DPP.

During the election campaign Fogh Rasmussen consistently ruled out giving the Danish People's Party any seats in his cabinet in order to distance himself from criticism of the far-right party's "anti-foreigner" stance.

But it is widely expected he will govern with support from the DPP on most issues except immigration and the EU, which the Liberal party supports.

The manifesto of the new coalition pledges to restrict immigration, improve the integration of foreign nationals already in Denmark., and expel those who commit serious crimes.

There will be a clampdown on asylum seekers and Denmark's cradle-to-grave social benefits will not be granted to foreign immigrants for seven years. Previously the figure was three years.

The document also promises to keep a lid on taxes from 2002 with income tax cuts from 2004.

Social benefits will be improved including paid maternity and paternity leave, to be shared between both parents, for 52 weeks.

Industry is to be "liberalised" with deregulation of the Danish natural gas and electricity market. Steps are to be taken towards privatisation of the state oil and gas company DONG and the national postal service Post Danmark.

Analysts see the coalition manifesto as bringing a marked shift to the right.

Fogh Rasmussen, a former taxation and economic affairs minister, had campaigned in the election under the slogan "Time For Change" and the platform follows his election pledges.

His poll win was a major rebuff to Social Democrat leader Nyrup Rasmussen, 58, who called the snap election in a gamble that voters would unite behind his nine-year leadership after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Denmark became the second Scandinavian nation after Norway to oust a Social Democratic government this year in favour of the centre-right. Norway's Labour Party, blamed for failing to update a cradle-to-grave welfare state, lost a September election.

In Sweden, Social Democratic Prime Minister Goran Persson faces an election in September 2002. His party won just 36.6 percent of the vote at the last elections in 1998, the party's worst result since 1920.