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Denmark’s youthful new government has almost twice as many male ministers as female

The average age of Denmark’s new government is, at 41, the same as its leader Mette Frederiksen. There is a clear majority of male ministers.

Published: 27 June 2019 16:37 CEST

Denmark’s youthful new government has almost twice as many male ministers as female

Denmark's seven female ministers. Photo: Liselotte Sabroe / Ritzau Scanpix

Named by 41-year-old prime minister Frederiksen on Thursday, the average age of all new ministers is 41.8.

The oldest minister is Mogens Jensen, 55, who has been given the portfolio of Food, Fisheries and Equality. The youngest team member is 33-year-old Simon Kollerup, the new business minister.

After the 2015 election, the government named by former PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen had an average age of 50, while the government formed by Helle Thorning-Schmidt in 2011 had an average age of 42.8, Jyllands-Posten reports.

Frederiksen herself is Denmark’s youngest prime minister since the country switched to a democratic system of government in 1848-49.

“By giving important ministerial posts to (immigration minister) Mattias Tesfaye, (social and interior minister) Astrid Kragh and (climate and energy minister) Dan Jørgensen, (Frederiksen) is showing she values the younger forces which have characterized the party with her as leader,” Aalborg University election researcher Johannes Andersen told Fagbladet 3F.

But Frederiksen was also criticized for giving only 7 of the 20 ministerial posts, or 35 percent, to women.

That compares to 40 percent in the coalition put together by Rasmussen in November 2016 and 29 percent after the 2015 election. When Rasmussen first formed a government in 2010, 47 percent of his ministers were women, Politiken writes.

In the most recent Social Democrat-led government, Thorning-Schmidt’s from a 2014 reshuffle, 40 percent of ministers were women.

Pia Olsen Dyhr, leader of the Socialist People’s Party (SF), one of three left-wing parties who agreed the basis for the new government with Frederiksen earlier this week, expressed her disappointment with the ministerial gender distribution.

“A shame to see a share of just 35 percent women in the new government! But positive to have a female prime minister,” Dyhr tweeted.

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Denmark's government said on Tuesday it could not recover text messages requested by an official commission in relation to an ongoing inquiry. The timing, hours after local elections, was strongly criticised by opposition lawmakers.

Denmark's government said on Tuesday it could not recover text messages requested by an official commission in relation to an ongoing inquiry. The timing, hours after local elections, was strongly criticised by opposition lawmakers. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

As such, an official inquiry currently scrutinising the decision last year to cull millions of fur farm mink will not have insight into key government communication relating to the controversial decision.

The PM has faced questions over a policy to automatically delete texts after 30 days, a practice not universally applied across government ministries.

“It has only been possible for police technicians to recreate a limited amount of SMS messages from the devices of justice ministry heads of department,” justice minister Nick Hækkerup said in the statement.

READ ALSO: Why are Danish PM Frederiksen’s deleted mink texts causing controversy?

The timing of the announcement, less than 24 hours after local elections, drew immediate criticism from opposition parties.

The Ministry of Justice received the material needed for analysis of the devices on Friday last week, news wire Ritzau reports.

Justice spokesperson Morten Dahlin of the opposition Liberal party said it was “easy to assume” that the government held back the announcement to avoid a negative impact for the Social Democrats in local elections.

READ ALSO: How damaging is local election result for Danish PM Frederiksen?

“It’s foul play not to go public with this information when it was received, but instead choose to keep it back. And you can only speculate about whether this is because the information wasn’t allowed to come out before the municipal elections,” Dahlin said.

The Liberal representative stressed that his party has “no confidence” in the government’s response to the controversy over the mink texts.

Hækkerup rejected the suggestion by the Liberals that the government had deliberately withheld information until after the election.

“That is simply not true. The process was that we in the Ministry of Justice received the material in sealed envelopes on Friday. We agreed on Monday with the Mink Commission [official inquiry, ed.] that we should meet with the commission and its assistants which was to have the material and review it with their clients. So it’s a process that was agreed with the Mink Commission,” Hækkerup said.

The minister’s comment was in turn rejected by his opposition counterpart.

“The explanation that the information was stored in sealed envelopes, which were coincidentally not opened before the municipal elections, is ridiculous,” Dahlin said.

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