Finance minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen became Denmark's prime minister today, replacing Anders Fogh Rasmussen who was appointed Nato chief yesterday. He pledged to do his best to guide the country through the global economic crisis.
Both the Conservatives, his junior coalition partner, and the anti-immigrant Danish People's Party, their ally, have given 44-year-old Lokke Rasmussen their backing, enabling him to take over without calling an election.
Mr Rasmussen, one of Denmark's youngest prime ministers, is expected to continue his predecessor's pro-growth, tax-cutting policies and inherits the task of leading negotiations for a global climate treaty in Copenhagen in December and steering Denmark through the economic crisis.
"The queen has asked me to form a government with the Liberal Party and the Conservatives and that is a task I have accepted," Lokke Rasmussen told reporters after meeting Queen Margrethe at the Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen.
He had won the backing of his ruling Liberal Party's coalition allies to head a new government after Anders Fogh Rasmussen stepped down to prepare for his new post as secretary-general of the Western military alliance Nato.
In Denmark, the monarch formally appoints the prime minister.
"I will work day and night and use the experience I have gained in more than 20 years in politics to try to guide Denmark through the international crisis," he said.
"I feel very humbled by this task and I will try my utmost to live up to the expectations of the Danish people."
The cabinet will resign, leaving Lokke Rasmussen free to appoint a new ministerial team. He said he would not make many changes and hoped to complete the cabinet in the next few days.
Analysts are tipping Fogh Rasmussen's key aide and party strategist, Claus Frederiksen, to become finance minister, and his successor will need a new welfare minister to replace Karen Jespersen, who resigned unexpectedly on Friday.
After strong growth in 2006 and 2007, Denmark's economy contracted by 1.1 per cent last year and is seen shrinking as much as 3 per cent this year.
"It's going to hurt before its gets better, but if we are careful we can get through," Mr Rasmussen later told reporters in Graested, North Zealand, where he arrived to celebrate his father's 75th birthday.
At a meeting in the prime minister's office where the former PM symbolically handed over office to the incoming one, the future Nato chief told his successor he would be criticised no matter what he did.
"You just have to choose what you want to be criticised for," he said.
Reuters