Helle Thorning-Schmidt Quotes
I feel like giving myself a pat on the back. We can create history tonight. We can bid goodbye to 10 years of (Liberal-Conservative) government which has ground to a halt, and get a new government and a new majority in Denmark.
Thorning-Schmidt, Helle. Election Night Remarks. 15 Sept. 2011. Quoted in Olsen, Jan M. "Denmark's left-wing opposition wins election." The Associated Press, 15 Sept. 2011.
Italy had a parliamentary system with a number of parties. The result was that almost all governments had to be coalitions in order to have a majority. However, the smaller members of the ruling coalition would often insist upon certain laws to be passed, and if they were not, they would withdraw from the coalition and cause the government to fall. Few Italian governments lasted even 2 years. Renzi advocated a referendum to change the Constitution to make governments more stable.
The election to which he referred was the 2005 election, the first free election since the Baath Party seized control of the country. Despite boycotts and threats of assassination and terrorist attacks, almost two thirds of the eligible population risked their lives and voted.
He made this statement to his party colleagues and they pleaded with him not to issue it as a public statement and he agreed.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt is a Danish retired politician who served as the 26th Prime Minister of Denmark from 2011 to 2015, and Leader of the Social Democrats from 2005 to 2015. She is the first woman to hold each post. Following defeat in 2015, she announced that she would step down as both Danish Prime Minister and Social Democratic party leader. Ending her political career in April 2016, she was the chief executive of the NGO Save the Children until June 2019.
