How A Labrador Became A Conservative Political Candidate In Denmark

Another day, another dog called Ludvig being an official electoral candidate for a conservative party in Denmark, apparently.

Black labrador, Ludvig Støjberg, is running as a candidate for Denmark’s newly formed Denmark Democrats party. According to his profile on the Denmark Democrats website, he’s entering politics because he cannot, “mirror myself in any of the Members of Parliament I see in the news and read about in the newspaper”.

Translated from Danish, his profile also says he believes, “a welfare society should be measured by how many treats a good dog gets per month”. Which would be a fine sentiment if… he wasn’t running for a controversially formed right-wing conservative party.

In fact, Ludvig is the pet of impeached politician, Inger Støjberg. Støjberg has held various positions in the Danish ministry, with her most recent position being Minister for Immigration, Integration, and Housing between 2015 and 2019.

Infamously, however, Inger Støjberg was impeached by the Danish parliament in 2021 for human rights violations. The parliament ombudsman found that Støjberg, as Immigration Minister, illegally ordered Danish authorities to separate families and partners seeking asylum in Denmark.

The Denmark Democrats, the party for which the good boy Ludvig Støjberg is running, is the party Inger Støjberg founded after her impeachment. The conservative party is the seventh largest in the Danish parliament.

Former minister Støjberg founded the party in June of this year on promises of strengthening anti-immigration policies, as well as ties to regional Denmark.

This isn’t the first time Støjberg has used her pets in campaigns to make her platform more appealing either. Earlier this year, she offered potential voters the option of following her campaign by viewing a live stream of a GoPro camera she had attached to Ludvig. Clearly, Ludvig’s candidacy is an extension of Støjberg’s attempt to draw attention away from her controversial past.

In his profile, Ludvig the lab claims he lives “with my better half”. However, I think we can agree that it’s impossible for someone who committed human rights violations to be the better half of any pair.