The election, some tennis & a book

The incumbent conservative coalition government of Anders Fogh Rasmussen won the general election (only just!) on Tuesday and he had the traditional audience with Queen Margrethe at Amalienborg yesterday to inform her about the outcome. Crown PrinceFrederik was also present. The Prime Minister informed the Queen he could form a government and would not require a round of talks with her to resolve issues of government formation since he has more or less the same support as during the last parliament. The election has produced the youngest Folketing in 5o years (average age just over 46 years).


A former girlfriend of Crown Prince Frederik was elected to the Folketing as a member of the centre-right and recently formed party, Naser Khader's New Alliance. Khader said in a Politiken article that although a novice, Malou Aamund would play a part in developing the new party. Aamund has been a senior sales manager for IBM for Northern Europe. She is well-known in Denmark after an incident in 1990 when she drove Frederik's car 18 metres without a license after night clubbing at the Copenhagen Jazzhouse. It was a sensational story at the time and precipitated the end of the two year relationship the two had had. (See also TV2.)

Berlingske Tidende (Danish) 'Fogh til dronningen kl. 11.00'
The Guardian 'How the Danes voted'

Berlingske Tidende webcast (1:03)
TV2 video clip (0:55)


On election day and with no obligation to vote because they are impartial as royals, Frederik and Mary attended the Legends Live 07 Tennis Tournament and saw John McEnroe and Björn Borg play, Stefan Edberg and Henri Leconte were also on the program.
Added: Her&Νu clip (as usual these clips can take a long time to load)


Johanne Pontoppidan Tuxen and Camilla Høy-Jensen have written a new book about Alexandra called Concerning Alex which will be published tomorrow. The book is a survey of information about Alexandra including some 50 sources from Hong Kong, the authors looked at video tapes of documentaries and special royal broadcasts and hundreds of Danish and international newspaper articles. The authors plot Alexandra's journey from a childhood in Hong Kong to the palaces of Denmark. They also describe their view of how the Danish royal family learned how to handle a foreign middle class daughter-in-law in an encounter between Denmark and the Far East, and then learned how to lose her again. (c. 160 DKK, publisher Politiken)