General elections were held in

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

on 12 March 2013.Mining question dominates Greenland poll
BBC News, 12 March 2013 The opposition

Siumut Siumut (SIU, ; ; ) is a political party in Greenland in the social democratic tradition. Since the establishment of home rule in 1979, it has been the dominant party in Greenland. Siumut is led by Erik Jensen, who beat the then-incumbent Prime ...

party emerged as the largest in

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

, winning 14 of the 31 seats.Mining proponents win Greenland election
AP, 13 March 2013 On 26 March Siumut leader Aleqa Hammond became Greenland's first female

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Electoral system

The 31 members of

were elected by

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

in multi-member constituencies. In

Nuuk Nuuk (; , formerly ) is the capital and most populous city of Greenland, an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark. Nuuk is the seat of government and the territory's largest cultural and economic center. It is also the seat of gove ...

there was just one polling station.

Campaign

The main campaign issue was exploitation of the island's mineral wealth. The ruling

Inuit Ataqatigiit Inuit Ataqatigiit (, old spelling: , , , IA) is a democratic socialist, Greenlandic independence, pro-independence political party in Greenland. It is represented in the Folketing (the Danish parliament) by Aaja Chemnitz Larsen. Múte B. Egede ha ...

party supported allowing foreign workers, most of whom would be

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

, into the country to work in the mining industry, whilst the Siumut party was opposed to the proposal.

Rare-earth element The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or rare earths, and sometimes the lanthanides or lanthanoids (although scandium and yttrium, which do not belong to this series, are usually included as rare earths), are a set o ...

s were of particular concern.

Results

Government formation

Following the election results, Siumut leader Aleqa Hammond claimed that she was "in no hurry to form a coalition" and would wait to hear the demands of the other parties.Greenland votes for change
Nunatsiaq Online, 13 March 2013 Hammond ultimately formed a government with

Atassut Atassut (, also referred to as Feeling of Community) is a liberal-conservative and unionist political party in Greenland. Founded on 29 April 1978, Atassut is an established partner of Venstre. History Atassut was established in late 1976 a ...

and the Inuit Party. Siumut took six of the eight cabinet posts, with Solidarity taking the Health and Infrastructure portfolio and the Inuit Party taking the Environment portfolio.

References

2013 elections in North America 2013 parliamentary

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

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