Sawt Falasteen - Denmark's election candidates bare all in sauna campaigning

"This is quite different because people are relaxed and we are all stuck there, so we don't leave," smiled Gitte Droger, a 53-year-old voter who is a regular sauna-goer at her local wellness centre in Copenhagen's Vanlose neighbourhood.

With just over a week to go until the country's March 24 legislative election, two candidates from Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's Social Democratic party met voters for a sweat session, clad in their bathing suits.

Member of parliament Ida Auken joined Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard to speak to 18 voters on Sunday about the climate, energy, inequality and crime, occasionally ladling water over the sauna's hot rocks as they talked.

The heat was intense and enveloping as the audience -- also clad in bathing suits, seated on towels placed on the wooden benches -- listened to Auken and Hummelgaard present their ideas and answer questions.

"It's the first time I've campaigned in a sauna," Auken told AFP.

"This whole election has been a lot of these things for me, different (kinds of) campaigning: playing handball and going to bars instead of sitting on panels," she said.

Hummelgaard tried an indoor ice bath for the first time in between two rounds in the sauna.

"Campaigning also has to be fun," he said.

"It's a long campaign. It's four very intense weeks, we're at it all the time and I thought this would be a calming and great experience while meeting voters."

- 'Real human beings' -

In the Scandinavian country, having easy access to elected officials is almost taken for granted.

"It's important for people to see us in a different way, so they can see that we're real human beings, see what drives us and get some trust back," said Auken, who is seeking a sixth term.

"For democracy, it's maybe a better way of stepping out of the regular forms and meeting each other differently."

The sauna visitors were not vetted before meeting the politicians, and there was no security at the event.

Seeing candidates stumping in the sauna was par for the course in the country, said voter Miriam Hvidt.

"It's not very strange in Denmark to see your minister of something taking a dip in the ice water," she said, noting that it is common to run into elected officials at the supermarket or cinema.

"I wouldn't imagine in a big country like the United States that you would very often see a top minister being among other people."

The Social Democrats, who have been in power since 2019 and currently lead a left-right coalition, top public opinion polls with around 21.5 percent of votes, though that is six points lower than their 2022 election score.

Negotiations after the election are expected to determine what shape the next government will take.

I.Yassin--SF-PST