The Conservative People's Party (Denmark)

The Conservative People's Party (Danish: Det Konservative Folkeparti, DKF), also known as The Conservatives (De Konservative) is a conservative[1] centre-right[4] political party in Denmark. The party is a member of the European People's Party (EPP) and International Democrat Union.

"DKF" redirects here. For the Dalaw Kalinga Foundation, see List of charities in the Philippines.
Conservative People's Party

Det Konservative Folkeparti
LeaderSøren Pape Poulsen
Founded1916
Preceded byHøjre
Free Conservatives
Moderate faction of Venstre
HeadquartersChristiansborg
1240 København K
Youth wingYoung Conservatives
Student wingConservative Students
IdeologyConservatism[1]
Liberal conservatism[2]
Green conservatism[3]
Political positionCentre-right[4]
European affiliationEuropean People's Party
International affiliationInternational Democrat Union
European Parliament groupEuropean People's Party
Nordic affiliationConservative Group
ColoursGreen
Folketing
12 / 179
European Parliament
1 / 14
Regions:[5]
15 / 205
Municipalities:[6]
225 / 2,432
Mayors:
8 / 98
Election symbol
C
Website
www.konservative.dk

History
Election poster, 1939. It reads: Comrades - let it now be over! Vote for more work. Vote Conservative.

The party was founded in 1916[7] based mostly on its predecessor, Højre ("Right"), but also on the Free Conservatives and a moderate faction of the liberal party Venstre.

The party has participated in several coalition governments, but only one Prime Minister of Denmark, Poul Schlüter, has come from this party, serving from 1982 to 1993.

The youth branch of the Conservative People's Party, albeit an independent organisation, is Young Conservatives, the earliest formed youth organisation in Denmark, founded in December 1904, and believed to be one of the oldest in the world, preceding the Conservative People's Party by 10 years. The student branch is Conservative Students, likewise an independent organisation, which has branches at all Danish Universities.

The party used its first logo in 1950, consisting of the serif-letter "C" coloured green.

On 24 August 2000, the Conservative People's Party rebranded itself as the Conservatives, and at the same time retired its 50-year-old green serif-letter "C" logo, thus launching a new logo for the first time since 1950. The new logo was a circle which contains a chartreuse circle with the letter "C".

From the 2001 parliament elections until 2011, the Conservative People's Party was the junior partner in a coalition government led by Venstre. The Conservative People's Party is currently led by Søren Pape Poulsen,

In the 2004 European parliament elections, the party won a seat. Four months later, on October 23, 2004, it adopted a logo consisting of a green circle-squared box that contains a dark-green screen with the letter "C" that is coloured green; the "Konservative" wordmark is placed below the symbol, though it too is also coloured green. The member is currently Bendt Bendtsen, who is a member of the EPP Group in the European Parliament. In the 2014 European election the party garnered 9.1% of the national vote, retaining Bendtsen's seat as MEP.

In the 2011 parliamentary election for the Folketing (Danish national parliament), the Conservative People's Party won eight seats, 10 fewer than it had won in the previous election in 2007, and it received 4.9% of the vote, placing the party in eighth place nationally.

On 27 September 2013, the Conservative People's Party received the current version of its now-existing logo: the colour of the letter "C" was changed to white, the circle-square retained its dark-green colour, and the circle-squared line was removed from it. At the same time, the party gave up being known as the Conservatives, reverting its name to the Conservative People's Party.

The party remains committed to a centre-right alliance, working most closely with the liberal Venstre and somewhat less closely with the right-wing populist Danish People's Party. The Conservative People's Party cooperated with the Social Liberal Party during its time in power in the 1980s, and also with the centre-left government under Poul Nyrup Rasmussen in the 1990s.

List of leaders

Political leaders
John Christmas Møller1928–1947
Ole Bjørn Kraft1947–1955
Aksel Møller1955–1958
Poul Sørensen1958–1969
Poul Møller1969–1971
Erik Ninn-Hansen1971–1974
Poul Schlüter1974–1993
Henning Dyremose1993
Hans Engell1993–1997
Per Stig Møller1997–1998
Pia Christmas-Møller1998–1999
Bendt Bendtsen1999–2008
Lene Espersen2008–2011
Lars Barfoed2011–2014
Søren Pape Poulsen2014–

Party chairmen
Emil Piper1916–28
Charles Tvede1928–32
John Christmas Møller1932–39
Vilhelm Fibiger1939–48
Halfdan Hendriksen1948–57
Einar Foss1957–65
Knud Thestrup1965–72
Erik Haunstrup Clemmensen1972–74
Poul Schlüter1974–77
Ib Stetter1977–81
Poul Schlüter1981–93
Torben Rechendorff1993–95
Hans Engell1995–97
Per Stig Møller1997–98
Poul Andreassen1998–00
Bendt Bendtsen2000–08
Lene Espersen2008–11
Lars Barfoed2011–14
Søren Pape Poulsen2014–

Youth and student wings

Notable members
  • John Christmas Møller – Wartime resistance figure.
  • Poul Schlüter - The longest-serving Danish prime minister since Thorvald Stauning. Schlüter is the Conservative People's Party's only prime minister to date. He led the Conservative People's Party to its best-ever result at a national election, reaching 23.4% of the national vote. After his term as prime minister ended he was elected to the European Parliament in 1994, reaching a record breaking number of 247,956 personal votes.
  • Connie Hedegaard – Appointed as the European Union's first ever European Commissioner for Climate Action in February 2010, Hedegaard was elected to the Danish Parliament as a member for the Conservative People's Party in 1984 at the age of 23, becoming the youngest Danish MP ever at that time. In 1989, Hedegaard became first spokesperson for the Conservative People's Party, but left politics for journalism in 1990.[8]

Electoral performance and parliamentary representation
Election year # of votes % of Danish vote # of overall seats won # of Danish seats won +/- Notes
1918 167,865 18.3 (#4)
22 / 140
22 / 139
 14[note 1] part of the opposition
Apr 1920 201,499 19.6 (#3)
28 / 140
28 / 139
 6 parliamentarian crisis
Jul 1920 180,293 18.9 (#3)
26 / 140
26 / 139
 2 tolerating a Venstre-government
Sep 1920 216,733 17.9 (#3)
27 / 149
27 / 148
 N/A[note 2] tolerating a Venstre-government
1924 242,955 18.9 (#3)
28 / 149
28 / 148
 1 part of the opposition
1926 275,793 20.6 (#3)
30 / 149
30 / 148
 2 tolerating a Venstre-government
1929 233,935 16.5 (#3)
24 / 149
24 / 148
 6 part of the opposition
1932 358,509 17.3 (#3)
27 / 149
27 / 148
 3 part of the opposition
1935 293,393 17.8 (#2)
26 / 149
26 / 148
 1 part of the opposition
1939 301,625 17.8 (#3)
26 / 149
26 / 148
 part of the opposition until 1940 / then part of a unity government
1943 421,523 21.0 (#2)
31 / 149
31 / 148
 5 part of a unity government
1945 373,688 18.2 (#3)
26 / 149
26 / 148
 5 tolerating a Venstre-government
1947 259,324 12.4 (#3)
17 / 150
17 / 148
 9 part of the opposition
1950 365,236 17.8 (#3)
27 / 151
27 / 149
 10 part of the Venstre-led government
Apr 1953 358,509 17.3 (#3)
26 / 151
26 / 149
 1 part of the Venstre-led government
Sep 1953 383,843 16.6 (#3)
30 / 179
30 / 175
 N/A[note 3] part of the opposition
1957 383,843 16.6 (#3)
30 / 179
30 / 175
 part of the opposition
1960 435,764 17.9 (#3)
32 / 179
32 / 175
 2 part of the opposition
1964 527,798 20.1 (#3)
36 / 179
36 / 175
 4 part of the opposition
1966 522,028 18.7 (#3)
34 / 179
34 / 175
 2 part of the opposition
1968 581,051 20.4 (#2)
37 / 179
37 / 175
 3 part of the Social Liberal-led government
1971 481,335 16.7 (#2)
31 / 179
31 / 175
 6 leading the opposition
1973 279,391 9.2 (#5)
16 / 179
16 / 175
 15 tolerating a Venstre government
1975 168,164 5.5 (#5)
10 / 179
10 / 175
 6 part of the opposition
1977 263,262 8.5 (#4)
15 / 179
15 / 175
 5 part of the opposition
1979 395,653 12.5 (#3)
22 / 179
22 / 175
 7 part of the opposition
1981 451,478 14.5 (#2)
26 / 179
26 / 175
 4 leading the opposition until 1982 / then leading the government (P. Schlüter)
1984 788,224 23.4 (#2)
42 / 179
42 / 175
 16 leading the government (P. Schlüter)
1987 700,886 20.8 (#2)
38 / 179
38 / 175
 4 leading the government (P. Schlüter)
1988 642,048 19.3 (#2)
35 / 179
35 / 175
 3 leading the government (P. Schlüter)
1990 517,293 16.0 (#2)
30 / 179
30 / 175
 5 leading the government (P. Schlüter) until 1993 / then leading the opposition
1994 499,845 15.0 (#3)
27 / 179
27 / 175
 3 part of the opposition
1998 303,965 8.9 (#3)
16 / 179
16 / 175
 11 part of the opposition
2001 312,770 9.1 (#4)
16 / 179
16 / 175
 part of the Venstre-led government
2005 344,886 10.3 (#4)
18 / 179
18 / 175
 2 part of the Venstre-led government
2007 359,404 10.4 (#5)
18 / 179
18 / 175
 part of the Venstre-led government
2011 175,047 4.9% (#8)
8 / 179
8 / 175
 10 part of the opposition
2015 118,015 3.4% (#9)
6 / 179
6 / 175
 2 2015–16: tolerating a Venstre-government
2016–2019: part of the Venstre-led government
2019 233,349 6.6% (#7)
12 / 179
12 / 175
 6 part of the opposition
Election year # of votes % of Danish vote # of overall seats won # of Danish seats won +/- Notes
1979 245,309 13.98% (#4)
2 / 15
 2 13.98%
1984 414,177 20.69% (#1)
4 / 15
 2 6.71%
1989 238,760 13.3% (#4)
2 / 16
 2 7.39%
1994 368,890 17.74% (#2)
3 / 16
 1 4.44%
1999 166,884 8.47% (#5)
1 / 16
 2 9.27%
2004 214,972 11.3% (#3)
1 / 14
 2.83%
2009 297,199 12.69% (#5)
1 / 13
 1.39%
2014 208,262 9.1% (#5)
1 / 13
 3,59%
2019 170,544 6.2% (#6)
1 / 14
 2.9%

Notes
  1. Compared to Højre in the 1915 election
  2. The number of MPs was raised because of the partition of Schleswig
  3. The number of MPs was raised because of the new constitution

References
  1. Christina Bergqvist (1 January 1999). Equal Democracies?: Gender and Politics in the Nordic Countries. Nordic Council of Ministers. p. 318. ISBN 978-82-00-12799-4.
  2. Nordsieck, Wolfram (2019). "Denmark". Parties and Elections in Europe.
  3. Kosiara-Pedersen, Karina (3 June 2020). "Det Konservative Folkeparti". Den Store Danske (in Danish). Retrieved 27 June 2020.
  4. Josep M. Colomer (25 July 2008). Political Institutions in Europe. Routledge. p. 260. ISBN 978-1-134-07354-2.
  5. "AKVA3: Valg til regions råd efter område, parti og stemmer/kandidater/køn". Statistics Denmark. Retrieved 13 June 2010.
  6. "VALGK3: Valg til kommunale råd efter område, parti og stemmer/kandidater/køn". Statistics Denmark. Retrieved 13 June 2010.
  7. Western Europe 2003. Psychology Press. 30 November 2002. p. 133. ISBN 978-1-85743-152-0. Retrieved 8 May 2016.
  8. "Dead link". Archived from the original on 8 March 2011. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
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