THERE is something of an election thriller tomorrow when Danes go to the polls to elect a new parliament, thus deciding who gets a majority and can form a new government.

After four years with the Social Democrats’ Helle Thorning-Schmidt in charge, the polls show almost dead heat between the two blocs in Danish politics.

On the one hand, the so-called red bloc with the Social Democrats and the Social-Liberal Party in the lead, supported by the former government party, the Socialist People’s Party and the leftist Red-Green Alliance.

On the other hand, the so-called blue bloc, an alliance of former prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his party, the Liberals, a greatly weakened Conservative Party and the ultra-liberal Liberal Alliance, with the support of the right populist Danish People’s Party.

If the one bloc gets a majority Thorning-Schmidt will remain as prime minister. If the other bloc wins a majority, Rasmussen will take over and try again.

The stated colour differences of the two blocs are misleading, however.

When Thorning-Schmidt won the election in 2011 in the then government coalition between the Social Democrats, the Social-Liberal Party and the Socialist People’s Party, it happened on promises of putting an end to 10 years of right-wing policies of social cuts, rising inequality and poverty.

This made thousands — especially trade union activists — join the election campaign and ensure Thorning-Schmidt’s victory. But the government largely continued the EU-dictated austerity policies unchanged, and this has dominated the political debate in the past four years and led to widespread disappointment, frustration and apathy in the population.

The trade union leadership, that largely supports the current government, has reacted to this frustration by blocking protests and initiatives from the active trade union grassroots that could develop into critique of the Social Democrats.

In particular, maintaining the previous government’s cuts to access to unemployment benefits and the sell-out of state energy company Dong to US investment fund Goldman Sachs have sparked popular resentment.

The last case caused the Socialist People’s Party to leave the government coalition and many believe that the Social-Liberal Party have had too much influence on the economic policy of the Thorning-Schmidt government. Consequently, many have predicted that Thorning-Schmidt will have a hard time regaining power.

What is not so much talked about is the fact that immediately after taking power in 2011 the government signed the EU fiscal compact and thus subjugated Denmark to the EU’s demand for cuts in social spending that were later executed. The government has also announced subjugation to the EU banking union and an end to the Danish exemptions for EU judicial co-operation.

In this situation the right wing populists in the Danish People’s Party continue their sinister progress.

The party presents itself as Eurosceptic and a defender of the working class, even though it helped to engineer the former government’s social cuts and, in most cases, votes against legislation to ensure social rights and justice.

The strategy has been largely successful, with recent polls suggesting the party will increase its share of the vote from 12.3 per cent to a staggering 18.8 per cent.

Party chair Kristian Thulesen-Dahl, who has replaced Pia Kjaersgaard, has said that the party will not seek to form a government, but rather use the greater power it can gain by being a supporting party for a Rasmussen-led right-wing government.

The growth of the Danish People’s Party is supported by a harsh tone in the election debates that sees almost all parties competing to stamp down hardest on the weakest in society — the unemployed, refugees and the poor — who are made scapegoats for the weak economy.

Thus, both Rasmussen and Thorning-Schmidt have slogans about “making it less attractive to seek asylum” and that “it must be worthwhile for the unemployed to work” — implying that refugees come to prey on the Danish social system and that unemployment is not due to lack of jobs, but that the unemployed are lazy and get too much support.

The most significant difference between the two government possibilities are Rasmussen’s demands for tax cuts and “zero growth” in the public sector, which will mean more than 14,000 public-sector job cuts, facing Thorning-Schmidt’s promises of 0.6 per cent more a year for welfare, the equivalent of 7,000 more public employees.

As a single bright spot in the elections the left-wing Red-Green Alliance is also enjoying rising support, expecting to go from 6.7 per cent to 8.6 per cent of the votes in the latest survey.

With the charismatic Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen in front, the alliance has managed to give voice to some of the popular frustration over the government’s anti-social policy and reflect some of the same yearning for alternatives that the likes of Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain are experiencing.

The Red-Green Alliance runs for election on the hope that a strengthened left wing can form a heavier counterweight as a supporting party to a Social Democratic-led government than it has been able to in the past four years.

But as a member of the European Left Party, they still have trouble pointing out the root cause for this policy and are hampered from demanding a showdown with the EU fiscal compact, where it originates.

One last wild card in the elections is new party “The Alternative,” with former culture minister Uffe Elbaek in charge, which campaigns on promises of a “different and greener agenda” in Danish politics. It nonetheless supports both the EU and the present government’s economic policy.

• Freja Wedenborg is news editor of Danish daily newspaper Arbejderen.