(Bloomberg) -- As Danes prepare for national elections on June 5, a change of government is starting to look less certain.

Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who leads Denmark’s center-right Liberal Party, emerged as the surprise winner in European Parliament elections. The Social Democrats were the second-biggest group, while the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party suffered a disastrous result, seeing its support fall by more than half.

Berlingske, Denmark’s main newspaper, wrote in an editorial that the “surprisingly good election result” achieved by Lokke Rasmussen and his Liberal Party “has brought renewed excitement into the parliamentary elections” in Denmark.

Since Lokke Rasmussen called national elections last month, opinion polls have indicated he would lose and that Mette Frederiksen, the leader of the Social Democrats, was headed for a comfortable win that would make her prime minister. But the result of the European elections has now given Lokke Rasmussen “a brand new platform,” Berlingske wrote.

Denmark’s Liberal Party received 23.5% of the vote in Sunday’s European Union parliament elections, up from 16.7% five years earlier. The main opposition party, the Social Democrats, got 21.5%. The biggest loser in Denmark’s EU vote was Danish People’s Party, whose support fell to 10.7% from 26.6%.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christian Wienberg in Copenhagen at cwienberg@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tasneem Hanfi Brögger at tbrogger@bloomberg.net

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