The party was founded in 1916 Since World War II, the party has participated in several
coalition governments, but only one
Prime Minister of Denmark,
Poul Schlüter, has come from this party; he served as prime minister from 1982 to 1993. His government had to resign after the
Tamil Case, when the Justice Minister,
Erik Ninn-Hansen (himself a former Conservative leader), was impeached. The party used its first logo in 1950, consisting of the serif-letter "C" coloured green. On 24 August 2000, the Conservative People's Party rebranded itself as the Conservatives, and at the same time retired its 50-year-old green serif-letter "C" logo, thus launching a new logo for the first time since 1950. The new logo was a circle which contains a chartreuse circle with the letter "C". From the
2001 parliament elections until 2011, the Conservative People's Party was the junior partner in a
coalition government led by
Venstre. In the
2004 European parliament elections, the party won a seat. Four months later, on 23 October 2004, it adopted a logo consisting of a green circle-squared box that contains a dark-green screen with the letter "C" that is coloured green; the "Konservative" wordmark is placed below the symbol, though it too is also coloured green. The member is currently
Bendt Bendtsen, who is a member of the
EPP Group in the
European Parliament. In the
2014 European election, the party garnered 9.1% of the national vote, retaining Bendtsen's seat as MEP. In the
2011 parliamentary election for the
Folketing (Danish national parliament), the Conservative People's Party won eight seats, 10 fewer than it had won in the
previous election in 2007, and it received 4.9% of the vote, placing the party in eighth place nationally. On 27 September 2013, the Conservative People's Party received the current version of its logo: the colour of the letter "C" was changed to white, the circle-square retained its dark-green colour, and the circle-squared line was removed from it. At the same time, the party gave up being known as the Conservatives, reverting to its former name as the Conservative People's Party. (right) during a debate with
Martin Lidegaard and
Mette Frederiksen in
Nyborg, January 2026 At the
2015 election, the party did badly and was reduced to a mere six seats, which made it the smallest party in the
Folketing. But
Søren Pape Poulsen (who had taken over as leader the previous year) managed to double the party's seats to 12 in the
2019 election with 6.6% of the vote. After that election, several opinion polls indicated that the party enjoyed wider popular support than Venstre, but at the
2022 election gained just 5.5%, following an election campaign significantly influenced by affairs concerning Pape Poulsen's personal life. Poulsen died suddenly at the age of 52 on 2 March 2024, leaving the party leadership vacant. == Organization ==