The anti-immigration Danish People's Party (DPP) on Friday weighed up whether to join Denmark's next government after posting a record election score that made it the largest member of the right-wing bloc.

Lars Lokke Rasmussen of the right-wing Venstre party is expected to head a new coalition government, but he will face tough negotiations with the DPP after its support rose to 21.1 percent of the vote, a sharp rise from 12.3 percent in the previous election.

Danish opposition leader Lars Lokke Rasmussen's right-wing bloc emerged victorious in the country's general election but his Venstre party suffered a crushing blow, losing a quarter of its seats in parliament.

"The coming days will determine whether it will be possible to build a majority for a (government) platform that will lead Denmark down the right path," Rasmussen told cheering supporters after the election results came in.

Denmark's ruling center-left bloc was neck-and-neck with the opposition in Thursday's general election, exit polls showed after voting ended, following an intense three-week campaign focused on immigration and the economy.

Public broadcaster DR gave the right-wing opposition 89 seats in its poll against 86 for center-left Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, while commercial television TV2 gave the opposition 88 seats versus 87 for the ruling bloc.

Polls opened in Denmark on Thursday in an election that was too close to call, after a three-week campaign focusing on immigration and the economy.

Politicians of all stripes campaigned until the last minute amid speculation that the outcome of the race could be decided in Denmark's two former colonies, the Faroe Islands and Greenland.

The U.N. General Assembly chose a new president Monday, selecting Mogens Lykketoft of Denmark to serve the one-year term.

Lykketoft, a politician who is speaker of the Danish parliament, was the sole candidate put forward by Western European nations for the position that is rotated between regions.

Denmark's anti-immigration DPP party is expected to post a record score in Thursday's general election, which has been marked by debate over the place of foreigners in Danish society.

Public opinion polls suggest almost one in five Danes, or some 18 percent, will vote for the far-right Danish People's Party, up from 12.3 percent in the previous 2011 election, with immigration cited as one of the top three campaign issues behind the economy and the country's cradle-to-grave welfare state.

Iran has released the Maersk Tigris cargo vessel seized by its patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz last week over a business dispute, Iranian authorities said Thursday.

They said the ship was given permission to leave after Denmark's Maersk group, which chartered the Marshall Islands-flagged vessel, promised to abide by an Iranian court decision.

The head of Denmark's intelligence agency on Wednesday stepped down as an investigation criticized parts of the police response to February's deadly twin attacks in Copenhagen.

"After careful consideration, I have agreed with the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice and the National Commissioner of Police that I will now undertake new tasks to develop Danish police," Jens Madsen of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) said in a statement.

A Danish group on Monday vowed to expand an advertising campaign urging people to boycott products from Israeli settlements after the ads were dropped from Copenhagen buses.

"It's a clear attempt to deny us our freedom of speech," Fathi al-Abed, chairman of the Danish Palestinian Friendship Association, told AFP after bus operator Movia last week pulled the campaign.

The Danish editor who commissioned the Mohammed cartoons that triggered deadly protests a decade ago said Monday the failed attack on a Texas cartoon exhibition won't change how "politically correct" Americans feel about the drawings.

"The lines have already been drawn in this debate in the U.S. and I do not think events like these can change anything, because people will read their own opinions into it," Flemming Rose told Jyllands-Posten, where he is currently the foreign editor.