Yesterday were the elections for Parliament in the Netherlands. Everyone politically engaged expected a run-off between the party of Prime-Minister Jan Peter Balkenende (the CDA) and Wouter Bos’ party the PvdA. The party that wins the elections delivers the PM.
During the last couple of weeks of the campaign however, polls showed that the PvdA was losing ground fast. Where did those voters go to, at least in the polls? To our Socialist Party.
The polls were accurate: the CDA (Christian Democrats, the Dutch version of Angela Merkel’s party in Germany) still is the biggest party in Parliament, now with 41 (instead of 44) out of 150 seats. The second party still is the PvdA but… our Labor party (equivalent to Tony Blair’s party in Great Britain and Schroders party in Germany) lost 10 seats: down from 42 to 32 seats. My party, the VVD, lost 6 seats: down from 28 to 22 seats.
In other words, our three largest parties all lost seats. Who are the winners then, one might ask. Well, firstly the ChristenUnie (Christian Left). Up from 3 to 6 seats. Besides that the Partij voor de Dieren (Party for the Animals: yes, incredibly enough we have a party in Parliament from now on completely dedicated to… animals): no seats before the elections, now 2. Geert Wilders with his newly founded Party for the Freedom won 9 seats. Wilder is quite controversial because of his views on Islam and more specifically the integration problem in the Netherlands. One might think that our traditional political parties would have learned from past, when they tried to destroy Pim Fortuyn or at least did not take him seriously, but no… After the results not one party congratulated Wilders with his victory. Quite sad.
Anyway, the biggest winner is our Socialist Party: up from 9 to 26 seats. By doing so it has become our 3rd largest party, instead of the VVD:
1- CDA (41)
2- PvdA (32)
3- SP (26)
4- VVD (22)
We do have two little problems… It seems to be quite difficult to form a government coalition out of these results. The only possible option seems to be over the left: CDA, PvdA and ChristenUnie. However, there does not seem to be a lot the CU can gain from joining such a coalition. The ‘moral voters’ cannot get what they want, simply because there is not a majority backing those ‘morals’ regarding euthanasia for instance, up. Then one could say that the CU could focus on ‘social’ issues. Again problem: that is of course the playing field of the PvdA: the CU will not get any credit for that.
The other problem is that in our political tradition, big winners get rewarded for their victory: in this case that would mean that the SP would become a member of the government coalition. The only problem: there is no possibility for a coalition over the left either. This would mean that a CDA, PvdA and SP coalition should be formed. However, the CDA and SP are ideologically so far divided that I do not see that happening any time soon.
The voters moved to both sides of the political equation. The result is that it will be extremely difficult to form a solid government coalition.
My guess? A CU, CDA and PvdA coalition. Center Left.
Thanks for the Dutch voters who voted to delete every progress made the last couple of years.
I hope to write a post about how this might influence the relationship between the US and the Netherlands later today. If I do not have the time, I will publish such an article tomorrow.
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