Socialistisk Folkeparti has today revealed that Pia Olsen Dyhr will be its new leader, thus ending weeks of speculation.
SF has been in disarray since its former head, Annette Vilhelmsen, decided to step down and pull the party from the government coalition in the wake of the partial sale of DONG Energy to US investment bank Goldman Sachs in late January.
“It’s fantastic and I am very humble when it comes to the rejuvenation of our party,” the former transport minister told the press as she landed in Copenhagen Airport from her skiing vacation in Norway.
READ MORE: SF leaves government, Vilhelmsen steps down
No opposition
The 42-year-old was appointed unopposed because, according to SF, there were no other candidates within the beleaguered party who wanted to enter a leadership contest. It is the first time that a leader of SF has been appointed without opposition or a leadership contest since Aksel Larsen founded the party in 1958.
The relatively unknown Peter Andersen from Vejle in Jutland had announced that he would run for the party leadership, but later withdrew his candidacy after being unable to gather the 100 supporters necessary to run.
But Olsen Dyhr had no such issues. Among her supporters were former party head Villy Søvndal, and former ministers Holger K Nielsen and Jonas Dahl.
READ MORE: Finance committee approves Goldman Sachs deal
Picking up the pieces
The new SF head will announce her plans at a press conference this afternoon, but has already said that she hopes to once again become part of a government coalition within the next five to six years.
Since the party left the government, a number of high-profile members, including Ole Sohn and the former health minister, Astrid Krag, have jumped ship to one of the remaining government coalition parties, Socialdemokraterne.
It is not the first time that Olsen Dyhr has run for the leadership, as she resoundingly lost out to Villy Søvndal back in 2005. She is only the seventh leader in SF’s history, but the third since last September.
