Find the Candidate – or Cast a Blank Vote

Per Møller Jacobsen
Contact Person – Red Left


Examine the candidates. Ask them questions. Demand clear answers. If they stand for peace rather than rearmament, welfare rather than cuts, and solidarity rather than growing inequality and racism, then the choice is simple. But if they do not, then a blank vote is a legitimate and honest political statement.

22 March 2026

When elections are held in Denmark, we are repeatedly told that democracy is alive and well. Election day is presented as a celebration of democracy, where citizens are given the opportunity to determine the direction of society.

But for many of us on the left, it increasingly feels like a repetition of the same political landscape. The decisive issues are not truly up for discussion.

Parliament can be – to use a well-known expression in the Marxist tradition – a platform.

Denmark is rearming at a pace we have not seen in decades. Arms deliveries to wars are presented as responsible policy. At the same time, cuts and privatizations continue, gradually eroding the welfare system that the labor movement has fought to build over generations.

Inequality is growing, and the differences between political parties are becoming increasingly smaller. It is as if a broad consensus has emerged around what is called “the politics of necessity.” It is in this context that the campaign “Find the Candidate” has emerged.

The idea is simple: examine the candidates. Ask them questions. Find out what they actually think about the issues that determine our shared future.

Will they stop arms deliveries to wars?
Will they say no to rearmament?
Will they defend and expand welfare?
Will they combat growing social inequality?

If there are candidates willing to take up this struggle, then the matter is simple: one can vote for them.

But if you examine the candidates and discover that none of them are truly willing to challenge the course Danish politics is taking – what then?

There is also an answer. You can cast a blank vote. A blank vote is not passivity. It is a political statement. It says: none of the candidates on the ballot represent what I believe is necessary.

For Marxists, the relationship to parliament has always been marked by sober realism. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had no illusions that the fundamental power relations of society could be changed solely through parliamentary majorities. The state in capitalist society is not a neutral instrument, but a product of the power of the ruling classes.

Nevertheless, they never rejected using parliament as a political arena.

Parliament can be a platform. Some have said that parliament can resemble a heap of manure: one must be careful not to sink into it, but it can be a good place to stand and speak from. From there, the contradictions of the system can be exposed and the dominant policies criticized.

But fundamental changes in society are not created in the halls of parliament. They are created through organization, struggle, and movements from below.

Therefore, the campaign “Find the Candidate” is not about misleading people into believing that everything can be changed at the next election. It is about something far more grounded: taking politics seriously.

Examine the candidates. Ask them questions. Demand clear answers.

If they stand for peace rather than rearmament, welfare rather than cuts, and solidarity rather than growing inequality and racism, then the choice is simple.

But if they do not – if none of the candidates are willing to challenge the course Danish politics is taking – then a blank vote is a legitimate and honest political statement.

It says: we do not accept the political options being presented.

But even more importantly: it points to the necessity of organizing.

History shows again and again that the major advances for the working class have never been granted from above. They have been won through collective movements, organization, and political pressure from below.

This exercise also points to something else: the need to unite the forces of the left.

Perhaps the time has come to work toward a common left-wing list based on a minimum platform of peace, welfare, and social justice—where candidates can retain their political backgrounds and affiliations, yet unite around fundamental demands. If such a list is to stand in the next parliamentary election, the work must begin now.

It is work we hope to help initiate.

Examine the candidates.

And if they are not there – cast a blank vote.

https://arbejderen.dk/debat/find-kandidaten-eller-stem-blankt/

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