DENMARK:There are signs that voters may return to the former values of Danish political culture, writes Ole Vigant Ryborg
Imagine a European country where citizens under the age of 24 are barred from living with their husband or wife if he or she is a non-EU citizen, a country where MPs from the parties making the country's laws characterise Islam as a "plague spreading over Europe", a country that has cut its development aid to the world's poorest by a fifth, spending the money instead on sending soldiers to fight wars against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Denmark - that well-known Nordic country where welfare, solidarity and the open society used to be trademarks - is not the country that would spring to mind. That, however, is exactly what Denmark has become since voters opted for nothing less than a revolution when they ejected the Social Democratic government in 2001, replacing it with the present liberal/conservative coalition, which relies on the populist Danish Peoples Party for its parliamentary majority.
Less than 100 days after his election, prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen overturned decades of Danish policy towards refugees and asylum seekers. Asylum seekers now stand only a small chance of seeing their applications succeed.
Danish citizens under 24 can no longer marry and live with their husband or wife in Denmark if he or she is not a citizen of an EU country. Even foreign spouses under the age of 28 have had a hard time getting residence.
Indeed, the new policy has "succeeded" even more than the government might have wished.
Danish businessmen and even diplomats in Denmark's own foreign ministry have received letters from the "Foreigners Service" (Udlændingeservice) refusing permission for their wives and children to come to live with them if they are not from an EU state.
After six years, though, there are signs that voters may be set to return to the former values of Danish political culture when they go to the polls tomorrow.
Since the first day of campaigning, all polls show that the liberal/conservative government will lose the majority it commands with the Danish Peoples Party.
Denmark looks set for a minority government that will have severe difficulties manoeuvring in parliament. Eight parties are likely to get above the threshold of 2 per cent.
A majority of incoming deputies is likely to favour reinstating development aid at its former level of 1 per cent of GDP. They could also relax laws on foreigners and improve conditions for asylum seekers and back a referendum lifting one or more of the opt-outs that Denmark has sought on EU policies such as the euro.
Ironically, it looks for the moment as if it will be Mr Rasmussen who will head a government which will turn back the clock to the time before his 2001 election victory.
The election battle will be fought between Mr Rasmussen and the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Helle Thorning-Schmidt (40), who until two years ago was an MEP.
What Ms Thorning-Schmidt lacks in national experience, though, she makes up for in the international sphere. She is married to Stephen Kinnock, son of the former British Labour leader Neil, and has a large European network.
Neither Mr Rasmussen nor Ms Thorning-Schmidt, however, has any chance of winning the majority they want. Instead the four million Danish voters look set to elect a parliament that will be forced to co-operate along new lines and across traditional left-right party affiliations.
Danish politics has a long tradition of exactly that kind of co- operation, a tradition that was ended when Mr Fogh Rasmussen was elected on a promise of clearer policies and "taking sides". He is now likely to be re-elected, but his ultimate survival may well depend on his willingness in the future to take any side.
Ole Vigant Ryborg is European editor of the Danish weekly Mandag Morgen.