Denmark’s general election on March 24 delivered the strongest result ever for the socialist left. After a campaign centered on affordability, welfare, and inequality, the combined parties of the Left won almost as many seats as the Social Democrats for the first time. Enhedslisten, the Red-Green Alliance, became the largest party in the Copenhagen region. Meanwhile, after three years governing in a grand coalition with the biggest right-wing party, the Social Democrats suffered their worst election result in more than a century.

Although the Left did not secure a parliamentary majority with the Social Democrats alone, the election fundamentally changed the balance of power both nationally and within the center-left bloc. Any new government would need both the support of the socialist left and two centrist social-liberal parties. That condition set the stage for ten weeks of difficult governmental negotiations.

The result was a Social Democratic–led minority government supported by Enhedslisten from outside the cabinet. Remaining outside government was a conscious choice on our part to avoid losing our political independence and getting entangled in policies that we do not support. But Denmark’s tradition of minority governments gives the parliamentary parties in control of the necessary mandates to reach a majority considerable influence. Over the past decade, Enhedslisten has developed a strategy of using that position to win substantial reforms without taking ministerial office.