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General elections are due to be held in Greenland no later than 6 April 2025 to elect the 31 members of the Inatsisartut. [1]
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All 31 seats in the Inatsisartut 16 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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General elections are due to be held in Greenland no later than 6 April 2025 to elect the 31 members of the Inatsisartut. [1]
Independence will be the most important issue of the election. [2] The government declared in February 2024 that independence is its goal. [3] At a press conference in early 2025, pro-independence prime minister Múte Bourup Egede said that "work has already begun on creating the framework for Greenland as an independent state" and apparently hinted that an independence referendum could take place in April 2025, in tandem with the election. [4] [5] However, after president elect Trump's renewed demand for ownership of Greenland, Múte B. Egede at a press conference in Copenhagen on the 10th of January 2025 played down any notion of immediate independence and instead stressed the need for reforms of the cooperation between the governments of Denmark and Greenland. [6] . A few days later, on the 16th, Múte B. Egede in an interview on Foxnews stated that Greenlanders have no wish to become a part of the US. [7]
The 31 members of the Inatsisartut are elected by proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency. Seats are allocated using the d'Hondt method. [8]
Greenland is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the larger of two autonomous territories within the kingdom, the other being the Faroe Islands; the citizens of both territories are full citizens of Denmark. As Greenland is one of the Overseas Countries and Territories of the European Union, citizens of Greenland are European Union citizens. The capital and largest city of Greenland is Nuuk. Greenland lies between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. It is the world's largest island, and is the location of the northernmost point of land in the world—Kaffeklubben Island off the northern coast is the world's northernmost undisputed point of land; Cape Morris Jesup on the mainland was thought to be so until the 1960s. Economically, Greenland is heavily reliant on aid from Denmark, amounting to near half of the territory's total public revenue.
The politics of Greenland, an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, function in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic dependency, whereby the prime minister is the head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament Inatsisartut. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. Greenland has full autonomy on most matters, except on policies and decisions affecting the region including negotiations with the devolved legislatures and the Folketing.
Nuuk is the capital of and most populous city in Greenland, an autonomous territory in the Kingdom of Denmark. Nuuk is the seat of government and the territory's largest cultural and economic center. Nuuk is also the seat of government for the Sermersooq municipality. In January 2024, it had a population of 19,872, – more than a third of the territory's population – making it one of the smallest capital cities in the world by population. Nuuk is considered a modernized city.
Hans Poulsen Egede was a Dano-Norwegian Lutheran missionary who launched mission efforts to Greenland, which led him to be styled the Apostle of Greenland. He established a successful mission among the Inuit and is credited with revitalizing Dano-Norwegian interest in the island after contact had been broken for about 300 years. He founded Greenland's capital Godthåb, now known as Nuuk.
The Inatsisartut, also known as the Parliament of Greenland in English, is the unicameral parliament of Greenland, an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm. Established in 1979, it meets in Inatsisartut, on the islet of Nuuk Center in central Nuuk.
Inuit Ataqatigiit is a democratic socialist, separatist political party in Greenland that aims to make Greenland an independent state. The party, founded as a political organisation in 1976, was born out of the increased youth radicalism in Denmark during the 1970s. Traditionally in favour of a socialist economy, the party has been criticised by the left for having gradually moved towards a capitalist approach, supporting a market economy and privatisation. Inuit Ataqatigiit believes that an independent Greenland should be competitive while fighting to keep the environment clean.
Greenland elects on national level a legislature. The Greenlandic Parliament has 31 members of parliament, elected for a four-year term by proportional representation. Greenland has a multi-party system, with numerous parties in which a single party normally does not have a chance of gaining power alone, and therefore the parties must work together in order to form a coalition government.
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 Constitutional Act, which applies to the entire territory. It consists of metropolitan Denmark—the kingdom's territory in continental Europe and sometimes called "Denmark proper" —and the realm's two autonomous regions: the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic and Greenland in North America. The relationship between the three parts of the Kingdom is known as Rigsfællesskabet.
Diplomatic relations between Denmark and the United States of America began in 1783. Both countries are members of the Arctic Council, OECD, OSCE, NATO and the United Nations.
The Naalakkersuisut is the chief executive body and the government of Greenland since the island became self-governing in 1979. As an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland is a parliamentary representative democratic territory, in which the premier leads the cabinet, and of a multi-party system.
Greenlandic independence is a political ambition of some political parties, advocacy groups, and individuals of Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, to become an independent sovereign state.
General elections were held in Greenland on 24 April 2018, electing all 31 members of Parliament. The elections were required to be held no later than 26 November 2018, four years after the previous elections on 27 November 2014, but Prime Minister Kim Kielsen chose to call the elections seven months early. His Siumut party remained the largest in Parliament, but lost two seats, whilst Inuit Ataqatigiit, the second-largest party, lost three seats. The smaller Democrats and Partii Naleraq gained seats, with the newly formed Cooperation Party and Nunatta Qitornai parties both entering Parliament.
Since the 19th century, the United States has considered, and made, several attempts to purchase the island of Greenland from Denmark, as it did with the Danish West Indies in 1917. Internal discussions within the United States government about acquiring Greenland notably occurred in 1867, 1910, 1946, 1955, 2019 and 2025 and acquisition has been advocated by American secretaries of state William H. Seward and James F. Byrnes, privately by vice president Nelson Rockefeller, and publicly by president Donald Trump, among others. After World War II, the United States secretly offered to buy Greenland; public discussion of purchasing the island occurred during Trump's first term in 2019 and again after Trump's 2024 reelection.
Múte Inequnaaluk Bourup Egede is a Greenlandic politician serving as the seventh prime minister of Greenland, a position he has held since April 2021. He has served as a member of the Inatsisartut, the parliament of Greenland, since 2015, and as chairman of the Inuit Ataqatigiit party since 2018. He has called for Greenland to gain its independence from Denmark and has been part of work on a constitution for an independent Greenland.
Snap general elections were held in Greenland on 6 April 2021 alongside local elections. Inuit Ataqatigiit emerged as the largest party, winning 12 of the 31 seats in the Inatsisartut. The governing Siumut party finished second with 10 seats.
Pele Broberg is a Greenlandic politician (Naleraq), entrepreneur and pilot. He became minister of foreign affairs, trade, climate and business in April 2021, but foreign affairs and climate were transferred to the premier of Greenland Múte Bourup Egede in September 2021 after a controversy. Broberg was minister for finance in 2018.
Tillie Martinussen is a Greenlandic politician of the Cooperation Party. She was a member of the Inatsisartut, Greenland's parliament, from 2018 to 2021. She helped form the Cooperation Party in 2018, and was the only member of the party to be represented in the Inatsisartut from that year's election; she did not return to parliament after the 2021 election. She is an opponent to Greenlandic independence.
The spiral case is an ongoing investigation into a birth control campaign by the Danish government in Greenland which occurred primarily during the 1960s and 1970s. Danish doctors placed intrauterine devices in thousands of Greenlandic Inuit girls and women, often without consent and under the direction of government officials. The program was created to prevent unplanned or unwanted pregnancies, lower costs, and control Greenland's birth rate. Several cases occurred after the responsibility of the health care system was transferred to the Greenland government in 1991.
Events in the year 2025 in Denmark.
Qupanuk Olsen is a Greenlandic YouTuber, content creator, and engineer known for her education and travel series Q's Greenland. Her content primarily focuses on Greenland's traditions, cuisine, locales, and history.
| Parliamentary elections | |
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| European elections | |
| Local elections | |
| Referendums | |
See also: Elections and referendums in Denmark | |
