In an announcement that sent shock waves through Parliament late yesterday, Pia Kjærsgaard has announced that she is to officially step down as chair of the Danish People’s Party at the party congress in September.

“I have seen it so many times – a party chair has stepped down in a bad way. Either been voted out, forced to step down or has lost an election after a bad campaign. I felt that was not going to happen to me,” Kjærsgaard tells Berlingske in an exclusive interview.

Pia Kjærsgaard has been her party’s leading figure for the past 17 years and synonymous with the values that have given the party a platform in Danish politics.

Kristian Thulesen Dahl, 43, the party’s parliamentary group chairman and finance spokesman has long been the party’s crown prince, but 65-year-old Kjærsgaard’s popularity has been such that there has been no pressure for her to step down.

Pia Kjærsgaard was elected to Parliament in 1984 for the Progress Party, but broke with the party in 1995, setting up the Danish People’s Party with a small group of like-minded politicians, including Kristian Thulesen Dahl.

As a definitive part of the political coalition which swept the then Liberal Leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen to power in 2001, the Danish People’s Party began a decade of loyal cooperation with the centre-right government that made her one of Denmark’s most influential politicians.

Political friends and adversaries agree that Kjærsgaard has had a unique ability to communicate clearly and perceive public sentiment.

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