Denmark: Parliamentary candidates campaigning in Arabic

Trine Mach (Socialist People's Party) has started off her parliamentary election campaign, in Arabic. Her posters speak of more and better places for internship and the Palestinian cause. The Danish People's Party says it's submission to the parallel society and that Danish citizens should know enough Danish to be able to follow an election campaign, but Trine Mach rejects the criticism, and says that the most important thing is for as many people as possible to participate in democracy. Her posters are in both Arabic and Danish.

Trine Mach is not the only one campaigning in Arabic. Manu Sareen (Social Liberals) also intends to conduct part of his campaign in Arabic, as does the Red-Green Alliance. The website of Yildiz Akdogan (Social Democrats) also features Arabic, Kurdish and Turkish.

Manu Sareen points out that the voter turnout in the Copenhagen suburb of Tingbjerg in the last municipal elections was 17%. He says too many minorities don't participate in elections because they think it's too complicated, or that the messages are too complicated to understand. This is a way to reach out to them.

The Social Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals are not planning on campaigning in a foreign language. But they won't stand in the way of candidates who have good ideas.

Naser Khader (Conservatives) intends to campaign in Danish. He says he wouldn't intervene in how other people run their campaigns. However, he says that unlike the municipal elections, where everybody can vote, one needs to be a Danish citizen in order to vote for parliament, and Danish citizens are assumed to know Danish.