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 per cent 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 24.5pc, 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.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2025