LONDON

Denmark's ruling party led by incumbent Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is set to lose its majority in the country’s parliamentary election, according exit polls Tuesday.

Polls show that neither the ruling leftist "red bloc" led by Frederiksen's Social Democrats or the "blue bloc" comprising conservative parties, liberals and three populist parties are able to win a majority without mandates from former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen's newly established centrist Moderates party.

According to a poll by public broadcaster DR, the red bloc is projected to win 85 seats in the 179-seat parliament, while TV2's exit poll gave the bloc 86 seats.

Anders Bæksgaard, political editor at the newspaper Politiken, called the two exit polls a preliminary blow to Frederiksen.

The blue bloc is forecast to take 73 seats in both DR and TV2's exit polls.

"The next few hours will show us whether mandates move above the middle or not," Bæksgaard wrote.

He suggested that If Frederiksen is to have a majority with the red block, she must move 2-3 mandates above the center in the next few hours.

Exit polls predict that the Moderates led by Rasmussen got 9% of the votes, which means it will become Denmark's third largest party.

Rasmussen has refused to disclose what bloc he will support. However, he suggested that he sees the Moderates in a coalition spanning the left-right divide.

He could even end up as the prime minister of a coalition government, according to some analysts.

Frederiksen was forced to call an early election in the wake of a scandal over the slaughter of the country’s 17 million mink population in 2020 due to fears that COVID-19 would spread in the farms.