Frevert takes a breather to concentrate on mayor race

Louise Frevert is nothing if not a complex person. As a professional belly dancer, she embraces oriental culture with her performance, while facing a police investigation for slamming Muslims on her campaign website. And as a proclaimed homosexual mother of four, she firmly opposes gay demands for the right to marry or adopt children.

Throughout her roller-coaster ride of a career, taking her through stints of ballet dancing, minor roles in erotic movies, and 12 years in politics, she has shown a unique talent to turn heads and raise eyebrows.

The controversial element in the Danish People's Party's mayoral candidate and member of parliament became apparent last week, when derogatory comments on Muslim posted on her website earned her both a police investigation and an official reprimand from her party leadership.

On Tuesday, Frevert announced she would be taking a sabbatical from her parliamentary duties until after local elections held on 15 November.

Before the scandal broke, Frevert told The Copenhagen Post that she did not mind standing out amongst the city's mayor candidates.

'Those who vote for me know what they get,' she said. 'In a recent poll, Copenhageners were asked whom they did not want see as mayor in Copenhagen. Liberal candidate Søren Pind was number one, 25 percent couldn't stand looking at him. 18 percent couldn't stand me. 'Yes!' I said. 'Yes!' Because that means I'm in the game, I'm visible. As long as someone hates you, someone likes you too.'

Frevert has been a member of the city council for twelve years, as well as a member of parliament four the last four years.

Despite being the third largest party in parliament, the Danish People's Party's firm policies opposing immigration and foreign influence over Denmark have earned it limited support in local elections in the capital. This time around, Frevert hopes to get the seven seats it needs in the council to get the chairman post of one of its committees.

'It's very important for the party to get a leading councillor post in the city council, in order to get more influence in the capital,' she said. 'I would like to chair the committee of education, children and youth. If that can't happen I would like to get culture. But I wouldn't mind having any of them, because I'm a curious person. If I'm faced with something new, I think, oh well, then I'll learn that.'

Frevert's ambition is to raise the quality of education in the city's elementary schools by increasing discipline and order, and spreading immigrant children evenly throughout the country's schools.

'Eighteen percent of the city's inhabitants are immigrants, and that's a big problem,' she said. 'Many of them don't do anything to try to get a job, and parents ruin their children's future, because they don't want to be integrated.'

Frevert said that in contrast to London, Paris, or New York, Copenhagen was too small to function with many small communities of foreign cultures within the city's limits.

'Copenhagen is a small, cosy city,' she said. 'We want to keep it like that.'

Frevert said she did not oppose foreigners or immigrants as long as they adjusted to Danish society. Otherwise they had no chance of finding work.

'If I go to a hospital to find out what's wrong with me, I don't want the doctor to tell me in English, I want to hear it in Danish,' she said. 'I don't care what people speak in their homes, that's none of my business. But if they want to get a job, the only thing that works is learning Danish. We need workers, we need well educated people ... as long as they speak Danish!'

The issue of foreign cultures, however, got Frevert into trouble last week. A number of articles on her website stated that Muslims believed it was their right to rape Danish girls, and compared them with cancer cells, which could only be treated with chemotherapy or surgically removed.

Conflicting explanations offered by Frevert about who authored the statements led the Danish People's Party vice-chairman to call for an investigation.

Frevert distanced herself from the comments and stated that the editor of her website had actually authored them. The editor has since claimed responsibility for the comments and has been charged by Copenhagen Police for violating racism laws.

DF's vice-chairman Peter Skaarup accepted Frevert's call for a recess as 'a wise choice'.

Skaarup declined to say, however, how the party leadership would have responded if Frevert had not asked for a leave of absence.