The dutch cabinet has resigned... again

[arjan]

Poor Jan Peter Balkenende. For the 3rd time he has to resign as prime minister. After a cabinet of 3 months, then one for 3 years and now 2 years the coalition has broken again so he has no choice to offer his resignation to the Queen.

Breaking point this time was the military mission in Uruzgan.
In 2004 this cabinet decided 'we' (the Dutch) would end the mission at the end of 2010.
A few weeks ago a letter from the NAVO arrived asking for a new mission. That was strange, since - as I understood - letters like this only are sent as formality when the sender assumes it wil be accepted. But it didn't. The dutch Labour, called PVDA, refused to reopen the discussion leading to heated debates and finally in the end of Balkenende IV (III was a minority between II and the elections).

So what now. The economic crisis still exists, there's lots of other critic decisions to be made. But everything is on hold now.
Expected is that new elections will take place somewhere in June.

But what then. Looking at polls of the past years show a very differentiated political landscape.

CDA, the party of Balkenende, will probably loose popularity because of Uruzgan.
PVDA, dutch Labour with Bos as main man, has lost popularity since the start of this cabinet due to some controversial decisions.
Christian Union, the 3rd party in the cabinet, is a small party that won't be affected much by this whole thing.

PVV, the right wing party of Wilders, is very popular in the polls. Problem for them is that hardly any party will want a coalition with them unless they become much less radical. Should they get what they want, Holland may actually start deporting muslims to the country they, their parent or grand parents were born. Of course they don't call it deportion but I like to name it what it is.
They also have a lot of other absurd ideas but most potential voters for them are blinded by the anti-muslim attitude of Wilders.
In this way he's much more dangerous than killed politician Pim Fortuin was.

Then there's other partys, like VVD (liberals), SP (socialists), Groen Links (green) who also can get a lot of voters.

But how to form a new coalition from this all? A lot will depend on how the voters will divide their votes, but looking at polls and all a 3-party coalition seems impossible (mainly since the impopularity of Wilders among the other partys) and a 4 party coalition can never be very stable.

On a side note, in 11 days the Dutch already have to vote, but that's local and should have different issues than national and thereby may show a different outcome. But it will be an exciting time in Holland the next months...

[jhar26]

I fear that Wilders may very well be the one to profit the most from this. He's sorta the de Winter of Holland.

[erik]

So it's not just the American government that is dysfunctional, right?

[arjan]

Right.
Elections are June 9. I wonder if Wilders can get a program ánd people that fast.
This may all turn out as an advantage after all, if Wilders is rushed into finding enough people he may choose some wrong ones resulting in a mess in his party and drop outs in the parliament. Same happend with Fortuin's party after they were #2 party, after Fortuin's death.

[arjan]

Just an update.
Wilders' party won in both cities he participated in the local elections a few weeks ago, only 2 cities and he became #1 and #2 largest. But the party won't join a coalition since no other party wants to discuss about a prohibition on head scarfs for muslim women, this after his appeal for a national 'head scarf tax' .

In dutch labour, front man Bos decided to not be a part of the elections anymore. He chooses for a different carreer in which he will have more time for his family. New front man is Job Cohen, major of Amsterdam. In the polls this made his party rise from 3 to #1 which may result in Cohen becoming the new prime-minister.
Wilders has expressed his disgruntlement saying Cohen is 'a danger to Dutch culture', says 'he opens the door for the islam' and refers to Amsterdam, where Cohen was major, as a city where 'moroccan youth terrorize the streets'. This all after Wilders always openly supported Isreal in their fight against palestines and Cohen, of course, is jewish.

It will still be a few exciting months in Holland...

[arjan]

Last week the elections were held. The outcome is pretty surprising as much as difficult.

VVD, the liberals suprisingly became the largest party which may result in prime-minister Rutte.
That is, if he succeeds in creating a stable coalition. This means a lot of economization which will be harder for the low inclomes than for the higher. Somehow they managed to make this popular in Holland.

The biggest winner is PVV, Wilders Party (far right, anti islam). Almost the only party that will include him in a coalition is his old party, VVD, but together they have nowhere enough people in the chamber.

Dutch labour, PVDA had Job Cohen as leader. They were very close to VVD as the results came in but at the end they lost with a margin of 1 seat in the chamber.

Former prime minister Balkenende lost big time ending as 4th party with his CDA and losing 20 seats, resulting in resinging his leadership of the party. He won't be back in national politics.

Then there's a few partys with 10-15 seats like the socialists SP, green party Groen Links, left-liberal D66 and a few smaller partys.

Right now one man has been pointed to see what is possible, beginning with a VVD-PVV-CDA coalition which is almost the most right directed Holland has ever had. It will be difficult though, since CDA is not to keen on Wilders and of course they lost so much they will hestitate to return in the parliament immediately.

If this fails the next possibility will probably be a 4 party coalition of VVD, PVDA, D66 and Groen Links. This is a lot more left directed and therefor a lot of partys will have to change their goals to make it work. But I guess that's what a coalition is for, trade point of views until a workable compromise is made. One advantage here is that VVD, PVDA and D66 have reigned in a coalition before, for 7 years and specially the first 4 years made themselves very popular. But then PVDA was the largest (with Kok as prime minister). Optionally D66 or Groen Links could be replaced by SP but their points of view are too different from VVD to work.

If this won't work either there is only 1 other real solution and that is the biggest compromise of all, just put the 3 tradionally largest party together (VVD, PVDA and CDA). Problem is that the points of view are very far apart and will probably result in a very traditional uninspired parliament, not the best in times of economic crisis.

So, it will be exciting for some time I suppose.

[arjan]

The entire result:

VVD _{liberal, right} 31
PvdA _{labour, left} 30
PVV _{anti islam, right} 24
CDA _{christians, middle} 21
SP _{socialists, left} 15
Groen Links _{green, left} 10
D66 _{democrats/left liberal} 10
Christen Unie _{christians, left} 5
PvdD _{green/animals, left} 2
SGP _{christians, right} 2

total: 150, so you need at least 76 for a workable coalition.

[egoodstein]

Oh dear. Well, maybe a return to city states with syndicates running the show, or you can
revisit rule by the House of Orange!! A muddle I'm sorry. One of the problems of having
so many parties--and the 'fringe' parties become too important with even fairly small
increases. I used to think I liked the multiparty situation of Europe (or Israel for that matter). But now, for all the faults & often inner contractions & lack of substance of two party system like here (more or less-- our minor parties are pretty minor-- so far), we've avoided this fragmentation/policy muddle & multielections confusing the issue more. But can always change of course-- probably will as complications multiply. Hang in. . . !

Ed

[erik]

Quote by egoodstein:

But now, for all the faults & often inner contractions & lack of substance of two party system like here (more or less-- our minor parties are pretty minor-- so far), we've avoided this fragmentation/policy muddle & multielections confusing the issue more. But can always change of course-- probably will as complications multiply. Hang in. . . !

A lot of use here in America say we get tired of having only two major parties who are each funded by various big-shot corporations, but we never seem to want to do anything about it. It's all talk and not a whole lot of action, though we have the Green Party, the (GASP!) Tea Party, the Liberterians, and American Independent Party, if anyone overseas cares to know.

[arjan]

I don't think I want to trade our system for a 2 or 3 party system. Even the smallest parties still represent thousands of people. That too is democracy.

The US also has more parties - but are they not represented because of the 'winner takes all' rule? If that was done in Holland it sure would look a lot different. Although I think only Christen Unie and PvdD didn't win in any city or municipality.

[egoodstein]

>>The US also has more parties - but are they not represented because of the 'winner takes all' rule? If that was done in Holland it sure would look a lot different. Although I think only Christen Unie and PvdD didn't win in any city or municipality.<<

**Well, occasionally 3d party/independent candidates do win-- mostly at local levels however;
or also many/most local elections are more about the people running, not partisan or identifiable party affiliations. The local elections are still fairly significant in the USA in terms of who runs things day to day-- though I wonder if that is changing some. And once in awhile independent candidates like Ross Perot have done pretty
well in larger elections-- but pretty rare. At bigger level, esp. statewide or nationwide elections depend on who can get the word out to enough people; almost always the largest two parties because they can pay for TV and larger, longer campaigns, although within the parties themselves there is sometimes more competition about who is to be nominated in the general elections. That's why we mainly have 'primaries' to decide party candidates and then the general elections months later for statewide/nationwide elections. Necessary I guess, but often very boring in the length of campaigns.

Ed