‘We don’t want to be Americans’: Greenland election result in spotlight after Trump threats
All eyes have been on an island of 57,000 people who took to the polls this week amid Donald Trump’s repeated threats.
An island of 57,000 people just sent a very clear message to Donald Trump.
Greenland took to the polls on Tuesday in a closely watched election thrust under global spotlight thanks to the US President’s repeated threats to take over the resource-rich Danish controlled territory.
Greenland’s centre-right opposition Demokraatit party, which has criticised Mr Trump’s takeover and favours a slow approach to independence from Denmark, managed to secure a surprise victory winning 29.9 per cent of votes.
While the party more than tripled its score from the 2021 election, it will need to partner with opponents to form a coalition.
The Naleraq party – which supports closer relations with the US and a more rapid approach to independence – placed second, winning 24.5 per cent of the vote.
Ahead of the election, Demokraatit leader Jens-Friederik Nielsen told Greenlanders to use the vote to send Mr Trump a message that the self-governing territory is “not for sale”.
“We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders,” Mr Nielsen told Sky News.
“And we want our own independence in the future. And we want to build our own country by ourselves, not with his hope.”
“Absolute necessity”
The US President has long floated the prospect of buying self-governing Denmark-owned territory, which boasts oil, natural gas and other highly sought after mineral resources and is home to an existing US military base.
Melting ice caps around the island, located between the US, Russia and Europe, are also opening up new shipping routes which could significantly reduce transit times.
Mr Trump first proposed the idea of buying Greenland during his first term in 2019, in a bid swiftly rejected by Danish and Greenlandic authorities.
He again repeated calls after his 2024 election win, later stating US control of Greenland is an “absolute necessity” in a post on Truth Social in December.
Last week, he told Congress during an address: “We need Greenland for national security. One way or the other we’re gonna get it.”
Mr Trump further invited Greenlanders “to be a part of the Greatest Nation anywhere in the World, the United States of America” in a post on social media last Sunday.
“We will continue to KEEP YOU SAFE, as we have since World War II. We are ready to INVEST BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to create new jobs and MAKE YOU RICH,” he wrote.
Recent polling, published in January, shows 85 per cent of Greenlanders are opposed to Mr Trump’s idea.
Forming a coalition
After claiming Tuesday’s election victory, Democrats are now hunkering down to strategies about building a coalition government that could set out a path to independence.
The election dealt a heavy blow to the two parties in the outgoing government coalition, the left-green Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) and the social-democratic Siumut.
They had dominated the island’s politics since it was granted home rule in 1979. The Democrats’ deputy leader Anna Wangenheim told AFP they were “going to talk with every party” about forming a coalition government.
“We don’t know who we are going to collaborate with, but we are open to discuss and debate” future policies, she said, adding that talks would be held in the “coming days”.
The Democrats’ party leadership met on Wednesday to hammer out its negotiation strategy.
“Which approach to independence will win the day will ultimately depend on if the Democrats decide to form a coalition government, and if so, with which party,” said Dwayne Menezes, head of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative.
If the Democrats “choose to form a government with Naleraq, they would have to speed up their platform on independence and state formation”, an Arctic expert at the University of Copenhagen, Lill Rastad Bjorst, told AFP.
With Naleraq, the Democrats “will likely face constant and explicit demands to outline a concrete plan for the process”, added professor Anne Merrild at the University of Aalborg.
Naleraq says it envisages independence within a few years.
On election day, party leader Pele Broberg noted that the exits of Greenland and Britain from the European Union each took three years.
“Why take longer?” Broberg told AFP.
But the party showed signs on Wednesday that it was ready to compromise.
“We can’t have independence immediately but we would like to start the official process,” Kuno Fencker, elected to parliament for Naleraq, told AFP, saying that his party and the Democrats had many similarities.
Call for unity
The 2009 Act on Greenland Self-Government allows the territory to unilaterally initiate the independence process.
It stipulates that talks be held between the Danish and Greenlandic governments to reach an agreement.
That then has to be approved by the Greenlandic parliament, endorsed by a referendum on the island and voted on by the Danish parliament.
“Greenland needs us to remain united, which will be the basis of our negotiations,” Democrats leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen told a televised roundtable on election night.
He also noted two priorities of his campaign, “a calm approach towards the United States” and the building of a “foundation” to enable the creation of a Greenlandic state.
Ulrik Pram Gad, a researcher at the Danish Institute of International Affairs, said he expected the Democrats to follow a moderate path.
Now that voters had rejected Mr Trump’s advances, he said the new government’s task will be “to channel his interest towards economic co-operation”.
– With AFP
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