The 41-year-old prevailed against his competitors at a party conference in Herning, Denmark, with a clear majority of 499 delegates and was elected chairman with more than 60 percent of the votes, as reported by broadcaster DR. Messerschmidt succeeds Kristian Thulesen Dahl, who announced his resignation. The right-wing populist DF fell from 21.1 to 8.7 percent of the vote in the last parliamentary election in 2019.
Messerschmidt was already deputy chairman of the DF and is also a member of the Danish parliament, he used to sit in the EU parliament. The Danish judiciary overturned a conviction against him in December for fraud in the use of EU money and forgery of documents. An appellate court referred the case back to the lower court for reconsideration. The reason for this are doubts about the impartiality of the then presiding judge. Earlier in August, Messerschmidt was sentenced to a six-month suspended prison sentence. He himself denies the allegations.
The case is linked to a political alliance of Eurosceptic parties (Meld) and an associated foundation (Feld) that was dissolved in 2015. Messerschmidt is accused of providing false information about an EU conference at his party’s 2015 summer meeting in order to receive EU money of almost 100,000 kroner (around 13,300 euros). According to the knowledge of the competent court, this conference never took place.