The Danish municipal elections are on Tuesday, November 19, 2013. We’ve done some election coverage before and here’s a bit more.
Over at Cykelrepublikken - our Danish cycling and liveable cities NGO - we've been asking a long line of candidates in the municipal election five questions about their politics regarding cycling in Copenhagen and Frederiksberg. We've been posting their responses for the past couple of weeks on Cykelrepublikken's Facebook page and on the website.
The posts are in Danish (sorry about that) but after looking at so many responses from so many canidates from the different parties, it is easy to figure out where they stand. Cykelrepublikken has produced the graphic, above, to present a simple visualisation about where the parties stand on the issue of traffic, urban cycling and a liveable city. The graphic, above, is a Political Traffic Thermometer. The text on the left column reads, from top left:Bicycle City
Car Sceptic
Reduced Car Parking
Against Harbour Tunnel
For Harbour Tunnel
More Car Parking
Protecting/Subsidising Private Car Ownership
Car City
The party that comes out on top is the Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten), with Morten Kabell as the mayoral contender, closely followed by the Socialist People's Party (SF). The latter is the party of Ayfer Baykal, the current mayor in charge of Traffic and Environment.
The Danish Social-Liberal Party (Radikale) also finishes above the line.
The left-of-centre Social Democrats have occupied the Lord Mayor post in Copenhagen for over a century but the current Lord Mayor Frank Jensen has outed himself as a supporter of ridiculous harbour tunnels, car parking and all manner of politics that support a reversal of the work Copenhagen has done for the past 20 odd years to become one of the world's most liveable cities. This is, of course, not a very modern approach compared to other cities.
They appear beneath the line in the graphic, followed by the usual suspects. With that said, Frank Jensen is not every candidate in the Social Democrat party. There are other, more sensible politicians in the running.
Like Erik Willumsgaard, above. Like many politicians in Copenhagen, a bicycle or cargo bike is the preferred campaign vehicle. On Tuesday, the people of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg get to choose which century they want to live in.
