The Japan Times - Denmark's PM Mette Frederiksen, tenacious and tough on migration

Her Social Democrats posted their lowest election score since 1903 but still came out on top, and the 48-year-old will now try to form a new coalition government.

"I'm ready to take on the responsibility of serving as Denmark's prime minister again for the next four years," she told supporters.

The party stalwart is seen as the embodiment of Denmark's modernised social democracy, embracing a strict migration policy in order to defend the country's cherished welfare state.

"Denmark is a safe community, founded on trust and based on strong values," her party programme reads.

"And we must distinguish between those who can and want to (belong to) Denmark, and those who do not."

But Frederiksen doesn't just embody authority.

She loves to show off her cooking skills on Instagram, where she projects an image of an approachable leader who gets up early on Sundays to bake fresh bread for her family.

Frederiksen suffered a staggering blow in municipal elections in November 2025, when her party -- traditionally Denmark's biggest -- came in second place and lost nearly half of the municipalities it controlled, including the capital Copenhagen.

But her popularity surged in early 2026 when she stood up to US President Donald Trump over his threats to annex Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory which he says the United States needs to control for national security reasons.

Frederiksen "is a unifying figure in a world full of insecurity, and Danes are quite anxious -- there's Greenland, Ukraine, (and mystery) drones" that flew over the Scandinavian country last year, Elisabet Svane, political analyst at Danish newspaper Politiken, told AFP.

Frederiksen seized on the wave of popularity to call snap elections in late February.

- No obvious successor -

Frederiksen was born into a working class family of longstanding Social Democrats, her father a typographer and mother a pre-school teacher.

She entered parliament in 2001 at the age of 24, and took over as head of the Social Democrats in 2015 when the country's first woman prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, stepped down after an election defeat.

Frederiksen was a source of inspiration for the hit political drama Borgen, the show's creators have said.

The mother of two grown children has managed to unite her party without facing any serious challenges.

Despite rumours that she could one day move on to a top job at NATO or the EU after leaving Danish politics, pundits struggle to identify her future successor.

"There's no real contender, no crown prince within the party, so the current situation will increase internal power struggles," suggested Christine Cordsen, political analyst at public broadcaster DR.

Known as a workhorse, she initially won broad praise for her handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in Denmark during her first term from 2019 to 2022.

But she faced a barrage of criticism over her handling of the "mink crisis" in November 2020.

Amid a worrying Covid variant outbreak among minks -- when Denmark was the largest exporter of their furs -- she ordered the culling of some 17 million minks, an order which was later ruled illegal.

"After this crisis, she knew how to bounce back," Svane said.

Frederiksen has tightened migration policy in order to quell support for the far-right, and at the same time advocated stronger international commitments with unwavering support for Ukraine and a massive hike in defence spending.

"She focuses a lot on international challenges, which is very noble, but it's not going to help you win national elections," Svane said.

She has been praised for standing up to Trump in the Greenland crisis, which also saw her build closer ties with the leaders of the Arctic island, long strained over traumas suffered during Denmark's colonial past.

"She's always been very good on Greenland," said University of Copenhagen political science professor Ole Waever.

"Even before Trump's annexation ambitions, she spoke about Greenland with more respect and understanding than most politicians have."

"As far as Greenland is concerned, it's not a bad idea for her to stay on," he said.

K.Yamaguchi--JT