February 1853 Danish Folketing election February 1853 Danish Folketing election Folketing elections were held in Denmark on 26 February 1853. Christian Albrecht Bluhme of the Højre party remained Prime Minister after the elections, but after the government failed to win a vote on who would succeed King Frederick VII on 18 April by the three-quarters majority necessary, the legislature was dissolved and early elections were held in May. The elections were held using first-past-the-post voting in single-member constituencies. Only 14% of the population was eligible to vote in the elections, with suffrage restricted to men over 30 who were not receiving poor relief (or who
Folketing Business Affairs and Lars Barfoed, the Justice Minister, was widely expected, but on 14 January the Conservative group in the Folketing unanimously elected Barfoed as their new political leader. The Social Democrats under the leadership of Helle Thorning-Schmidt have enjoyed continuing majorities in opinion polls since late 2009 and hopes to form a centre-left government coalition consisting of the Socialist People's Party and the Social Liberal Party with parliamentary support from the small Red-Green Alliance. Both Margrethe Vestager (Social Liberal Party) and Villy Søvndal (Socialist People's Party) pledged their support to Thorning-Schmidt before the election. But there has been considerable