Anti-immigration Danish Pm Heads for Election Win

Denmark's centre-right government, which has introduced some of Europe's toughest immigration laws, was heading for victory last night in a snap general election.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, 52, the Liberal prime minister, appeared to have seen off a late challenge by the opposition Social Democrats who were forced to toughen their stance on immigration.

Mr Rasmussen kicked off election day by handing out croissants to commuters in Copenhagen. "It is always dangerous to take the results for granted," he said, after polls gave his Liberal party an apparently unassailable lead. "The race will be very close."

Mr Rasmussen, a former tax minister who called the election three weeks ago, first swept to victory in November 2001 on a populist pledge to crack down on immigration and cut taxes. Voters in Denmark, which has a population of 5.4 million people, appeared willing to reward him with a second term after he fulfiled both promises.

With the help of the anti-immigrant Danish People's party, which has supported his government on the issue, Mr Rasmussen cut the number of asylum seekers from 12,512 in 2001 to 3,222 last year.

"It's clear to me that other countries have followed and will follow, our lead," he said on Monday as Britain announced plans to tighten its rules for immigrants. Mr Rasmussen's tax cuts have been more modest, though highly symbolic in a country whose tax burden is the second highest in the EU after Sweden.

The government introduced tax cuts last year worth 0.7% of GDP, paving the way for the economy to grow by 2.2% after near stagnation in 2003.

The cuts, combined with longer maternity leave and shorter hospital waiting lists, have persuaded voters that Mr Rasmussen will not undermine Denmark's cherished welfare state, which is traditionally seen as the territory of the Social Democrats.

Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, a political science teacher at the University of Southern Denmark, told the Wall Street Journal: "Ironically, the Liberals, not the Social Democrats, are seen as the best guarantors of the welfare state."

Mr Rasmussen's expected victory will be hailed in Washington weeks before President George Bush visits Europe.

Denmark, which was one of only five countries to send fighting troops to Iraq, has 525 soldiers serving under British command in Basra.

Opposition to the war has increased in Denmark, a point Mr Rasmussen acknowledged yesterday.

He predicted that "we might make some adjustments in the spring" about the troops' presence.

Mogens Lykketoft, the Social Democrat leader, had pledged to bring Danish troops home.