COPENHAGEN, January 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Concerned their influence may draw voters’ support away from his party during the coming general elections, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen called on Muslim imams not to involve in the polls and to “stay out of politics”.

“In Denmark, politics and religion are separate,” Rasmussen was quoted by Agence France Presse (AFP) as saying Friday, January 28.

“Pastors do not use the church to push their parishioners to vote for specific parties. Imams should not do so either,” he added.

Danish voters are due to head for polling stations February 8 to cast ballot in the legislative elections.

Polls show the ruling coalition of Liberals and Conservatives, and parliamentary allies including the Danish People's Party (DPP), are set to win 100 of the 179 seats in parliament, according to Reuters.

Muslim Efforts

Rasmussen was angered by efforts of the imams in Denmark to draw up a common strategy to attract the voters' support for the Danish opposition parties against the ruling center-right coalition government during the legislative elections, AFP said.

The imams are planning to appeal to Danish Muslims, through prayers, on the Internet, in leaflets and in the media to choose parties that respect immigrants and that want to pull Danish troops out of Iraq, Kazem Said Ahmad, head of a political and media organization that represents the Muslim community, told Danish daily Jyllands-Posten.

Within this context, a group of twenty-five Muslim imams are planning to hold a meeting grouping representatives of Danish opposition parties on February 4, to discuss means of promoting the opposition parties during the February polls.

The Muslim imams' efforts came in the wake of several decisions taken by the incumbent Danish government that drew anger of the Muslim community in the European country.

The Danish government took a decision last November to award its “Liberty Prize” to Somali-born Dutch member of parliament Ali Hirsi, the script writer of the controversial film “Submission”, which shows women talking about abuse dressed in see-through robes with texts from the Noble Qur'an painted on their bodies.

The Muslim community was also resentful with the “ultra restrictive” immigration policies pushed through by Rasmussen's Liberal Party, his coalition partner the Conservatives, along with the far-right Danish People's Party, which informally supports the government in parliament.

Islam is Denmark's second largest religion after the Lutheran Protestant Church, which is actively followed by four-fifths of the country's population of 5.3 million.

Draw Fire

The Danish Prime Minister's remarks also drew fire from Danish lawmakers, who condemned what they named “the hypocrisy of the prime minister who himself mixes politics and religion by among other things having appointed a woman pastor as religion minister”.

“To say that pastors don’t preach politics is also not true. The government’s parliamentary ally, the Danish People's Party, counts two pastor MPs, who for the past 10 years haven’t stopped defending their policies not only in parliament but also in their churches,” Kamal Qureshi, an MP of the opposition Socialist Party, told AFP.

It is “legitimate for the imams to recommend to their followers to vote, not from a religious point of view, but to encourage them to participate in a democratic debate and to support parties that defend human rights and respect minorities,” he added.

The issue of imams training has recently taken central stage in several European countries.

Major Swiss Christian groups put forward a proposal to establish a government-supervised institute to educate imams on the “liberal” lifestyle in western societies, which split Muslim activists in the country down the middle.

German integration minister Marieluise Beck has further released a 20-point strategy  recommending that imams coming to Germany should have a knowledge of the German language and society.