Moderates (Denmark)

The Moderates (Moderaterne) is a liberal political party in Denmark founded by former Prime Minister and current Minister of Foreign Affairs Lars Løkke Rasmussen. He announced the name in a foundational speech on 5 June 2021. At the same time, he said that his main scenario was that the party would be formed after the 2021 Danish local elections. The name was, according to Rasmussen, inspired by the fictitious Prime Minister Birgitte Nyborg's party Moderaterne in the hit political TV drama Borgen (itself allegedly inspired by the Social Liberal Party) as well as the Swedish Moderate Party, the then–second largest party in the Swedish Riksdag. The Moderates' political position is referred to as centre to centre-right.

According to Rasmussen, Moderaterne is a centrist party that has the ambition to create "progress and change in a crossroads between a blue bloc that is tormented by value politics and a red bloc that is stuck in a past view of individual and state". Thus, it is not aligned with either bloc in the Folketing. The party began collecting voting declarations in June 2021. On 15 September 2021 Lars Løkke Rasmussen announced that they had received the 20,182 signatures needed to be eligible to stand in the 2022 Danish general election.

The Moderates saw a surge in popularity during campaigning for the 2022 general election, eventually ending up as the third largest party with 16 seats, as polls had suggested. They had positioned themselves as kingmakers in deciding who the next prime minister should be, but the incumbent red bloc won a majority, thus preventing the Moderates from having the decisive seats in the next government. Despite this, the Moderates entered negotiations with the Social Democrats and Venstre and successfully formed a grand coalition government, the Frederiksen II Cabinet.