On Wednesday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced that the country will go to early elections on 1 November: the legislature will end seven months earlier than the four years stipulated in the Danish constitution. Frederiksen, leader of the Social Democrats, had won the 2019 elections and had governed with a left-wing coalition ever since. Also part of the coalition is Radical Left (Radikale Venstre), the Danish social-liberal party which had strongly contested Frederiksen‘s actions in recent weeks, threatening to vote no confidence in the government if the prime minister did not call new elections. The party had especially criticised the government’s policies to combat the coronavirus pandemic, and the decision to cull millions of mink due to fears that a mutation of the virus in the animals could make vaccines less effective. Last June, a parliamentary enquiry committee had concluded that the decision to cull mink had no legal basis. Since then, support for the prime minister and the government had fallen sharply in the polls, and the Radical Left had urged that Frederiksen call new elections.