#19 Election Special: They negotiate in broom cupboards, but think outside the box. With Pia Gjellerup and Birgitte Hjort Sørensen

In this week's podcast, Sigge Winther has invited two very different but very committed women into the studio to talk about the upcoming municipal elections.

Pia Gjellerup was Denmark's first (and still only) female Minister of Finance, and she has also made her mark in local politics. She took over Helle Verkner's seat on Frederiksberg City Council in 1982 and has, by her own admission, followed and experienced municipal politics for more than a lifetime.

Actress Birgitte Hjort Sørensen's interest in politics has really taken off in the last three years. She is known for her role in the TV series Borgen, where she plays the talented and tenacious journalist Katrine Fønsmark. Since then, she has found time to be politically engaged alongside her career, including as a board member of the Danish Actors Association.

She remembers her first experiences with municipal elections as something to look at with great skepticism. For example, she remembers seeing some footage from an election night at Copenhagen City Hall.

"You relentlessly watch the fox baking going on, where they stand and whisper in some cupboards and it looks so kindergarten-like that you think 'oh my god! And that's also part of the municipal elections," she says

 The municipalities' responsibility

Pia Gjellerup says that often you just need to negotiate in peace from the press. She admits it can look a bit suspicious when people negotiate in broom cupboards, but she thinks that local politicians should be judged by the results they achieve.

And we need skilled people in municipal councils all around us. A reform storm awaits the municipalities, which will therefore be faced with a huge responsibility. And according to Gjellerup, there is good news:

"I think that in a lot of municipalities in the country we actually have politicians who take on the role of creating something new. They are going to save this welfare society," she says.

Listen to this week's Compass, where Pia Gjellerup and Birgitte Hjort Sørensen also discuss the Social Democratic Party's decline in the country's largest cities, the difference between election pork and vision, and one of the election's major themes: daycare centers.

Produced by Think Tank INVI - Institute for wicked Problems with support from the Carlsberg Foundation