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 ...

elects a

legislature A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial power ...

on a national level. The Greenlandic Parliament () has 31 members of parliament, elected for a four-year term 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 ...

.''Greenland Country Profile''
International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) ElectioGuide Greenland has a

multi-party In political science, a multi-party system is a political system where more than two meaningfully-distinct political parties regularly run for office and win elections. Multi-party systems tend to be more common in countries using proportional r ...

system with the political spectrum covering independence and unionism as well as left and right; as

parties A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...

rarely have a chance of gaining power alone, they tend to work together in order to form a

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

. Greenland has held parliamentary elections since 1979 when the Home-Rule act came into force. When this happened the islands were broken off into eight constituencies: Central Greenland, South Greenland, North Greenland, , , , and . However, in 1998, they were all remerged back into one constituency due to a desire to consider Greenland's interests as a whole, instead of the regional interests. Due to the number of seats in Greenland's parliament it takes a minimum of sixteen seats to form a majority government. Also, terms can be cut short if a government finds a majority against it or if the sitting prime minister decides to call one, and this is fairly normal. For example, an election came unexpectedly in April 2021, as the administration that had been running since 2014 by Kim Kielsen of the Siumut Party, due to the withdrawal of one of its coalition partners, Demokraait.Explainer: The Greenland Parliamentary Elections- 2021, 2021 One of the major debates in Greenland politics is whether to unionise or be independent. This debate divides parties and politicians between two poles. Greenland is currently one of two autonomous territories of the

Kingdom of Denmark The Danish Realm, officially the Kingdom of Denmark, or simply Denmark, is a sovereign state consisting of a collection of constituent territories united by the Constitution of Denmark, Constitutional Act, which applies to the entire territor ...

. This means that Greenland is a part of Denmark's international territory that has a degree of autonomy and

self-governance Self-governance, self-government, self-sovereignty or self-rule is the ability of a person or group to exercise all necessary functions of regulation without intervention from an external authority (sociology), authority. It may refer to pers ...

under a national government. Some politicians in Greenland want to become fully independent from Denmark and stand under the independence side of Greenland's politics. On the other hand, some politicians want to keep a strong union with Denmark and remain an autonomous territory.

Latest elections

General elections

In the election held on Tuesday, 11 March 2025 the centre-right opposition Demokraatit achieved the largest share of the vote ahead of Naleraq (Point of Orientation independence party) and the two governing parties, the left-wing

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 ...

(Community of the People) and

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 ...

Local elections

Danish elections

References

External links

Election results from 2002-present (in English)

Adam Carr's Election Archive

Electoral politics, party performance, and governance in Greenland: Parties, personalities, and cleavages in an autonomous subnational island jurisdiction
{{Greenland topics