Danish Folketing election, 1943

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23 March 1943

1945 →

All 149 seats to the Folketing
75 seats were needed for a majority

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Hans Hedtoft	Christmas Møller	Knud Kristensen
Party	Social Democrats	Conservative People's	Venstre
Last election	64 seats, 42.9%	26 seats, 17.8%	30 seats, 18.2%
Seats won	66	31	28
Seat change	2	5	2
Popular vote	894,632	421,523	376,850
Percentage	44.5%	21.0%	18.7%

	Fourth party	Fifth party	Sixth party

Leader	Jørgen Jørgensen	Arne Sørensen	Frits Clausen
Party	Social Liberals	Danish Unity	National Socialists
Last election	14 seats, 9.5%	1 seat, 0.5%	3 seats, 1.8%
Seats won	13	3	3
Seat change	1	2	0
Popular vote	175,179	43,367	43,309
Percentage	8.7%	2.2%	2.1%

	Seventh party	Eighth party

Leader	P. Gregersen	Valdemar Thomsen
Party	Justice	Farmers'
Last election	3 seats, 2.0%	4 seats, 3.0%
Seats won	2	2
Seat change	1	2
Popular vote	31,323	24,572
Percentage	1.6%	1.2%

Prime Minister before election

Erik Scavenius
Nonpartisan

Elected Prime Minister

Erik Scavenius
Nonpartisan

Folketing elections were held in Denmark on 23 March 1943 alongside Landsting elections, except in the Faroe Islands where they were held on 3 May. They were the first elections during the German occupation, and although many people feared how the Germans might react to the election, the event took place peacefully. The voter turnout was at 89.5%, the highest of any Danish parliamentary election, and became a demonstration against the occupation. The Social Democratic Party remained the largest in the Folketing, with 66 of the 149 seats. After the elections, leading German newspapers expressed disappointment and indignation with the lack of political evolution among the Danish voters.

The Communist Party of Denmark had been banned since 1941 and could not participate in these elections.

95% of the vote went to the four biggest, traditional democratic parties. In the years since, there has been some debate about whether this can be seen as democratic support for the government's "cooperation" policy (samarbejdspolitikken) with the German occupation authorities. Some have argued that the result showed a broad unity of opinion in the population and among politicians in support of the relatively cooperative line taken by the government. Bertel Haarder, citing Knud Kristensen, has argued that the vote was sold as one of solidarity with the Danish constitution, democracy, and a rejection of totalitarian elements in society, and cannot therefore be seen as an explicit endorsement by the population of the government's line.

The Faroes seat was won by Þ Petersen, an independent who was a member of the People's Party. However, his election victory was not recognised until 16 August 1945, only two and a half months before the elections that year.

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