Greenland’s Tuesday night election shows the country’s shift toward wanting independence from Denmark and wanting to shrink public spending.
In what was the highest voter turnout in over a decade, the European Conservative called the election results a “massive political defeat for the left-wing establishment parties.”
Greenland’s two previously dominant social democratic parties, the Inuit and the Siumut, lost significant representation in parliament, scoring 22% and 15% of the vote respectively.
This election marks an all time low for the long-reining political powerhouse, the Siumut. This socially democratic party has held a political majority for nearly 35 of the 45 years since Greenland gained home rule.
But the party walking away with the most control for the next four years is the Demokraatit party, which brought in 30% of the vote, up from 9% in 2021, per Courthouse News.
The party is center-right and pro-business, and has pushed back against Trump’s public statements encouraging Greenland to join the U.S.
During Trump’s joint address to Congress on March 4, he took a moment to speak to Greenlanders.
“We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America,” he said. “We need Greenland for national security and international security. And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it.”
Met by some boos and some laughs among members of Congress, Trump added, “I think we’re gonna get it — one way or the other we’re gonna get it.”
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Demokraatit leader and incumbent prime minister told reporters after his victory that his party’s win sends “a clear message to him (Trump) that we are not for sale,” per NBC.
“We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders. And we want our own independence in the future. And we want to build our own country by ourselves, not with his hope,” he added.
In an letter to the editor of U.S. News, Naleraq party leader Pelé Broberg described the urgent need for Greenland to become its own independent country. He cited a late January 2025 poll that found 84% of Greenlanders want to be independent from Denmark.
Broberg told The New Yorker that Trump’s comments jump-started talks of the country’s independence. “It is extremely helpful. It short-circuits all the usual narratives of why we can’t become independent,” Broberg said.
However, while Broberg praised Trump’s comments for making room for a conversation about independence from Denmark, he explained, “This is not about choosing between Denmark and the U.S. This is about Greenland’s right to exist as an independent nation.”
Of Greenland’s 31 parliamentary seats, pro-independence Demokraatit and Naleraq now fill 18. The Inuit party fills 7, the Siumut fills 4 and the Atassut fills 2.
Greenland has a population of 56,000, and the difference in votes between Demokraatit and Naleraq, which earned enough seats to be first and second place, was only around 1,500, according to The New York Times.
Four of the five parties on the ballot list independence as one of their initiatives, but it appears as though Greenlanders have gotten tired of waiting for the Inuit and the Siumut to keep their independence-related campaign promises.
