Greenland to get new govt to lead independence process

NUUK: The day after winning Greenland´s elections, the centre-right Democrats hunkered down on Wednesday to strategise about building a coalition government and a path to independence for the Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump.

Trump´s threats to take over the resource-rich Arctic island have shined an unprecedented global spotlight on Greenlandic politics.

All of the parties, and the majority of the 57,000 inhabitants, back independence.

But the two parties that came out on top -- the opposition centre-right Democrats and the nationalist Naleraq party -- disagree on how quickly the process should go.

The Democrats unexpectedly tripled their score to win 29.9 percent of votes. They want Greenland to cut ties with Denmark only after it has secured its own financial independence.

Naleraq, which doubled its score to 24.5 percent, wants to break free as soon as possible.

The election dealt a heavy blow to the two parties in the outgoing government coalition, the left-green Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) and social democratic Siumut.

They had dominated politics on the island since it was granted home rule in 1979.

As none of the five parties elected to parliament won a majority of the 31 seats, the Democrats will launch negotiations with the other parties in the coming days to build a ruling coalition.

Its party leadership met on Wednesday to hammer out its strategy.

“Which approach to independence will win the day will ultimately depend on if the Democrats decide to form a coalition government, and if so, with which party,” said Dwayne Menezes, head of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative.

If the Democrats “choose to form a government with Naleraq, they would have to speed up their platform on independence and state formation”, an Arctic expert at the University of Copenhagen, Lill Rastad Bjorst, told AFP.

With Naleraq, the Democrats “will likely face constant and explicit demands to outline a concrete plan for the process”, added professor Anne Merrild at the University of Aalborg.

Naleraq said it envisages independence within a few years.

“We can do it the same way we exited the European Union (in 1985). That (took) three years. Brexit was three years. Why take longer?” party leader Pele Broberg told AFP on Tuesday, referring to Britain´s departure from the EU.

But some voters and experts have expressed concern that a hasty break from Denmark could fuel Trump´s insatiability.