🇳🇱 Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: General Election (Nov 22)

[Earthling]

Rutte is threatening to collapse the government if other parties do not agree with tightening immigration policies regarding the family reunification of war refugees. Would be a political master stroke. BBB doesn’t have the candidates. GL-PvdA aren’t ready, and their dream candidate Timmermans will still be in Brussels until next year. D66 has collapsed in the polls. JA21 and PVV would lose firepower if the VVD act tough on immigration. It would make all the sense in the world for Rutte to call it now and call it over this issue. I suppose the election would then take place in September. But so far negotiations are still taking place. The proposed changes in policy are unacceptable to CU and D66, but Rutte would have a majority for them in parliament together with CDA and the right-wing opposition. However, that would probably mean the end of the government.

According to the polls at the moment there is no way to any stable government. Any possible coalition will need at least five parties in order to get to a majority. And there will be parties within that coalition that are hardly reliable partners (BBB, PVV, Volt) or are not in a good place at the moment (CDA, D66).

Also, I doubt many right wing voters will fall for this obvious play by the VVD anyway. Rutte is not seen as trustworthy. Not by the left but also not by the right.

[Earthling]

On current polling VVD will be the largest party again, followed by BBB, PvdA/Groenlinks combination, PVV and the others.

VVD and CDA could keep working together, and they could fairly easily add BBB, SGP, and JA21. In recent polls, those five parties would have between 63 and 68 seats.

Is not likely to happen and it will only lead to a very unstable coalition. Even worse than the current one.
CDA is falling apart and is eaten alive by BBB as we speak.
BBB is not a strong party. Their support is a wide but narrow. And they don´t have the people to create a stable parliamentary party.
SGP is the fundamentalist Christian party. Their core values are not popular with about 90% of the public (shops closing on sundays, no abortion, no gay marriage).
JA21 might be the only stable partner of the four parties (not counting the VVD). But there are also a lot of unknows about them.

And even with all of them there is no majority within parliament. So they need to find a sixth party to fill the gap.

Look, about 70 to 75% of the voters are done with Rutte. He is not popular, is seen as a liar and untrustworthy and judged as someone who does not seem to care too much about the state of the nation. His supporters (the VVD voters) don´t mind all of that because they are not suffering from the effects of his policies.
The biggest problem is: there is no alternative. There is no one within the poltical landscape who looks like he or she can really challenge Rutte for the crown. Not Van der Plas nor Wilders or Kuiken or anybody else.
So Rutte wins by default. Not because of he is strong (the VVD is not polling great either) because of the others are weaker.

[Earthling]

So, snap elections in September?

Seems very likely. But the government still needs to give a clarification. Until that time, nothing is out the question.

[Earthling]

On current polling VVD will be the largest party again, followed by BBB, PvdA/Groenlinks combination, PVV and the others.

VVD and CDA could keep working together, and they could fairly easily add BBB, SGP, and JA21. In recent polls, those five parties would have between 63 and 68 seats.

Is not likely to happen and it will only lead to a very unstable coalition. Even worse than the current one.
CDA is falling apart and is eaten alive by BBB as we speak.
BBB is not a strong party. Their support is a wide but narrow. And they don´t have the people to create a stable parliamentary party.
SGP is the fundamentalist Christian party. Their core values are not popular with about 90% of the public (shops closing on sundays, no abortion, no gay marriage).
JA21 might be the only stable partner of the four parties (not counting the VVD). But there are also a lot of unknows about them.

And even with all of them there is no majority within parliament. So they need to find a sixth party to fill the gap.

Look, about 70 to 75% of the voters are done with Rutte. He is not popular, is seen as a liar and untrustworthy and judged as someone who does not seem to care too much about the state of the nation. His supporters (the VVD voters) don´t mind all of that because they are not suffering from the effects of his policies.
The biggest problem is: there is no alternative. There is no one within the poltical landscape who looks like he or she can really challenge Rutte for the crown. Not Van der Plas nor Wilders or Kuiken or anybody else.
So Rutte wins by default. Not because of he is strong (the VVD is not polling great either) because of the others are weaker.

If you think Rutte is going to win again and that a conservative coalition won't be formed, what do you imagine is going to happen?

BBB and CDA are working together in 5 of the 12 formed provincial executives, there's clearly no red line there.

BBB may be a flash in the pan single issue party, but that makes them more desirable as a governing partner, since by implementing their agenda you can steal their voters.

SGP is in the provincial executives of three provinces, working with BBB and VVD in all three, with CDA in two, with CU in two, and with PVV in one. None of these parties would blackball them. They wouldn't win a ban on abortion and they're not delusional enough to ask for one.

The full six party group might drop SGP or JA21, but there's no other plausible coalition with the current polls.

You are talking about provincial level. That is vastly different because many people do not care about that.

And I never said that there is a red line within either CDA or BBB about working with the other party. But a party being decimated by another party makes for a very difficult situation between the two parties. CDA will be in shambles and not eager to govern again. And BBB, like I said, is not a stable partner in any coalition because the don´t have the people to both govern and form a stable party within parliament.

I am not saying that I won´t happen. Because off course it could. But I don´t see it as likely right now. A coalition of six parties is not a stable one. And if there are parties within that coalition that are either in a very bad (CDA) or unknown place (BBB, JA21 and SGP all have no governing experience) it will make the coalition even worse.

But in the end, we don´t even no what will happen because all polls were done before the end of the current coalition. With an election somewhere in the next 4 months everything could change.
BBB could just as easily fall apart. Like I said, their support maybe wide but it´s not deep. But they could also become the biggest party.
There is Omzigt, what will he do?
Will FvD even collapse even further?
The PvdD (Animal rights Party) might become even bigger than PvdA and SP.

[Earthling]

BBB want a right-wing coalition with the SP in it. Pieter Omtzigt announced he will decide on his future in "a number of weeks".

SP is a socialist party (it´s literally their name). They are not going to be part of any economical right wing coalition.

[Earthling]

Well, it's hard to say where BBB stands any many issues because that is the great unknown. We will find out in coming weeks, I presume. But I could see them not being too right-wing on the economical issues.

But still. The SP is the most left wing party in parliament. The fact that they said they would be willing to work with the VVD says nothing.
Also, SP is not polling strong either. They will be destroyed if they enter such a coalition without one of the other left wing parties. Can't see that happening.