The new leader-in-waiting of the Danish People’s Party has issued his first political appeal to the non-socialist parties in Parliament, calling on the Liberal Leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen to unify the right under electoral promises on taxes and immigration.

Thulesen Dahl is expected to be voted in as the Danish People’s Party’s leader at the party’s national congress in September, following the announcement yesterday that the current leader, Pia Kjærsgaard, is to step down.

But both the Liberals and Conservatives have rejected Kristian Thulesen Dahl’s idea of immediately delineating a four-party platform of promises from the Liberal, Conservative, Danish People’s and Liberal Alliance parties.

“We do not believe that all sorts of election promises should be made indiscriminately. We aren’t even in an election campaign in Denmark,” says Liberal Political Spokeswoman Ellen Trane Nørby, adding that there are currently no plans for a common electoral platform for the four liberal parties.

Asked whether a common platform could be developed at a later stage, Trane Nørby also rejects that idea.

“I feel I have said from the start that we don’t see a common platform for four parties,” she says.

Thulesen Dahl tells Jyllands-Posten that there is a direct connection between his call for a common platform and the Danish People’s Party’s support for a new government led by Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

“The Danish People’s Party is to be used to make him prime minister and implement his promises. So he will have to accept that the Danish People’s Party is necessary.Part of that package will be a promise to normalise immigration,” Thulesen Dahl says.

Trane Nørby responds that Denmark is not in an election campaign, but that at some time in the future, when an election is imminent, those parties who are looking to change prime ministers will have to meet; “But we are not there yet,” she says.

Conservative Leader Lars Barfoed also rejects the idea of a common platform.

“I cannot imagine us contesting an election on a common platform with the Danish People’s Party,” Barfoed tells the national news agency Ritzau.

“We have far more comprehensive demands for changes and reforms which will mean a reduced public sector and that more people will have to manage without transfer incomes,” Barfoed adds.

The only one of the four right-of-centre parties to support Thulesen Dahl’s idea is the Liberal Alliance.

“It will enable people to see what is going to happen – that immigration policy will be under control, that the public sector will be smaller, lower taxes, growth, care for the elderly and that Lars Løkke Rasmussen will be prime minister,” the Liberal Alliance’s Anders Samuelsen tells Berlingske.

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