Danish centre-right opposition wins election, PM quits party
Danish voters ousted Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt in an election on June 18 and handed power to an opposition centre-right alliance including huge gains for a eurosceptic, anti-immigrant party.
Opposition leader Lars Lokke Rasmussen said he would try to form a government but is likely to have to make big concessions to ensure support from the right-wing Danish Peoples' Party (DF), which ended up with more votes than his Liberal Party.
With all of the votes counted on the mainland, the centre-right won 90 seats in parliament to 85 seats for the centre-left bloc of Thorning-Schmidt, who wrongly gambled that an economic upturn would win her re-election.
Denmark's first female prime minister, elected in 2011, Thorning-Schmidt conceded defeat and quit as party leader after the vote.
DF, the second-biggest party behind Thorning-Schmidt's Social Democrats, has supported the Liberals in government before and its backing gives the centre-right led by Rasmussen its overall majority.