Polling stations across Denmark have opened in national elections expected to change the Nordic country’s political landscape, with new parties hoping to enter parliament and others seeing their support dwindle. Neither the center-left nor the center-right is expected to win a majority, meaning 90 seats in the 179-seat Folketing. That could leave a former prime minister who left his party to form a new one this year as kingmaker with his votes needed to form a new government. More than four million Danish voters can choose between 14 parties. Domestic issues dominated the campaign, ranging from tax cuts and the need to hire more nurses to financially support Danes amid inflation and soaring energy prices due to Russia’s all-out war in Ukraine. At least three politicians are vying to become prime minister. They include Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who guided Denmark through the COVID-19 pandemic and worked with the opposition to boost Danish defense spending after Russia invaded Ukraine, and two centre-right opposition politicians – Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, Liberal leader and Søren Pape Poulsen, who leads the Conservatives. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen votes at a polling station in Hareskovhallen in Vaerloese [Sergei Grits/AP] “We fight until the end. It will be a close election,” Frederiksen said after voting north of Copenhagen. “I’m optimistic, but I’m not sure of anything.” A former leader of the Liberals, Lars Løkke Rasmussen launched his new centrist party in June. According to opinion polls, his moderates could get up to 10 percent of the vote. He has hinted that he could see a government coalition with the Social Democrats and could also be considered as a prime ministerial candidate. On the center-right, two new parties that want to limit immigration are vying to enter parliament and may oust a third similar group that has been instrumental in previous governments pushing for tougher immigration rules without being part of a governing coalition. Among them are the Democrats of Denmark, created in June by former hard-line immigration minister Inger Støjberg. In 2021, Støjberg was convicted by the rarely used Court of Appeal for ordering in 2016 that couples seeking asylum be separated if one of the partners was a minor. She has served her 60-day sentence and is now eligible to run again. Pollsters say her party could get around 7% of the vote. That could threaten the once-powerful populist, anti-immigration Danish People’s Party, which has been crumbling in recent months amid infighting and hovering around the two percent threshold needed to enter parliament. In 2015, the party garnered 21.1 percent of the vote. People arrive to vote at a polling station located in the Hareskovhallen sports hall located in Vaerlose, near Copenhagen [Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP] Støjberg’s party is similar to another – the small nationalist, anti-immigrant New Right party – already in parliament. They called for a broad centre-right government. Frederiksen has led a minority, one-party Social Democratic government since 2019, when she ousted Loke Rasmussen. Of the 179 seats in the Danish parliament, two come from each of Denmark’s two autonomous regions – the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Voting was exceptionally held on Monday in the Faroes – Tuesday is a holiday there – and one seat went to the centre-left and one to the centre-right in Denmark, Danish broadcaster DR said on Tuesday. Voting in Greenland takes place on Tuesday.