The recent revival of religions has made religious individuals more concerned about their political interests. Many, especially those belonging to minorities, have sought political influence as MPs. In Denmark, Muslims, in particular, have been keen to become members of the Folketinget. The aim of the paper is to show what challenges a religious candidate meet in a political party system embedded in a secular protestant political culture. It analyses the public debate about the most recent candidate, the Palestinian born Asmaa Abdol-Hamid. The empirical basis is opinion material published in the major Danish newspapers from late spring to late automn 2007 when she was a candidate for the Socialist Red-Green Alliance. The Red-Green Alliance is of special interest in that respect since Socialism is an explicitly anti-religious and secular ideology, but the party for a long time has expressed concern with minority issues and worked to make Denmark a multicultural society. The empirical material shows that Danes from varying political observations have questioned whether she was (suit)able to act as a representative of Socialists, of feminists and as a representative of any Dane at all. Further, her Muslim and immigrant identity have served as a basis for stereotyping of her as a representative of Palestineans, headscarf-wearing (orthodox) Muslims and Islamo-Leninists. Asmaa Abdol-Hamid has herself to some degree sustained some of these questions and suspicions, since she has promoted herself as a role model for immigrants and as a headscarf-wearing feminist. Drawing on Jane Mansbridge, I analyse by means of the categories promissory representative, anticipative representative, gyroscopic representative, and surrogative representative.
