Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: Rutte III era

[mvd10]

Peak 21st century politics: PVV The Hague municipal council member Willie Dille claims to have been raped and abused by a group of Muslims 1 year ago. She claims fellow municipal council member Arnoud van Doorn (Muslim convert, leader of some local Muslim party) sent them to do it. Big if true. Arnoud van Doorn is a very nasty and radical man (converts are the worst lol), and to be honest I wouldn't be surprised at all. Then again, PVV members also are known for having a ''big fantasy'' . Like I said: very big if true.

The VVD is in trouble again. Rumour has it that Wybren van Haga (VVD MP who got in trouble because he broke some rental rules as landlord) isn't allowed to speak with the media and only gets sh**t committees. Van Haga seems to be pissed off because of it. And now a story has broken out that van Haga didn't completely sewer ties with his businesses, apparently there is some classic construction which allows him to be de facto in charge. Personally I think the whole situation surrounding van Haga is a witch hunt. Since van Haga was known as a independent-minded right-wing municipal council member in Haarlem they might be in trouble if he decides he's tired of it and leaves the party since that would cause them to lose their majority. Now, they're going to lose their majority in the senate in a few months anyway and they probably would have SGP support, but losing the majority still would be a bad sign. So van Haga has some room to f**k around I suppose.

[mvd10]

Ok, this escalated quickly. Willie Dille, the woman who claimed she was raped by Muslims who were sent after her by fellow council member Arnoud van Doorn, has committed suicide. Apparently Dille has spoken with both the police and mayor Pauline Krikke (The Hague, VVD) and they advised her to file a police report, but she didn't do it.

[mvd10]

There is even less support for eliminating the dividend tax. Apparently it will cost 2 billion euros now. Support has dropped to 15%. I'm pretty sure the dividend tax won't be eliminated in the end. By March 2019 the coalition probably will have lost its majority in the senate (even if you count SGP), so they'll have to work with some opposition parties and their first demand will be to reinstate the dividend tax. Personally I'm conflicted on it. I support the idea on paper, but in practice most of the tax cut will go to foreign governments (many international tax deals) instead of investors in Dutch corporations which makes it a rather inefficient tax cut.

D66 wants judges to be more ethnically diverse to make people feel better represented. Ironically judges are known for being rather big D66 supporters, which is why so many right-wing voters rail against the judges (their D66-image combined with low sentences in some high profile cases). D66 doesn't want a quota though.

[mvd10]

Current PvdA voters are deeply middle-class, but I wonder what the results would have looked like with potential PvdA voters. But I agree that they'll never be able to go as far as the Danish social democrats. According to peil.nl's table 66% of PvdA 2012 voters voted for D66, GL, PvdA, DENK or PvdD. And I don't know how reliable peil.nl's demographic breakdowns are, but apparently PvdA slightly overperformed with educated voters even in 2012. According to peil.nl PvdA won 26% of high-educated voters and 21% of (self-described?) high income voters in 2012 while they won 19% and 15% of those groups in 1994. So I guess the PvdA has been deeply middle-class (moreso than the other European social democrats?) for a while.

[mvd10]

Why is the CDA doing so badly?

Maybe it's a hot take, but I think the CDA has a much larger share of anti-establishment/disappointed voters than the other establishment parties (and CU's voter base is quite loyal for obvious reasons). Buma repeatedly criticized Rutte over the past 5 years and he didn't make any deals with Rutte 2, VVD and PvdA relied on D66, CU and SGP for that. Buma definitely tried to win ''left-wing conservatives'' (people estimate that 40% of voters is in the left-conservative quadrant on a PM-esque test). Both the VVD and the CDA ran a right-wing campaign when it came to cultural issues/immigration, but the VVD campaign still was rather optimistic while Buma ran a fairly pessimistic campaign, and he repeatedly blasted Rutte for ''only seeing the value of money and failing to adress the falling sense of community''. So I guess there are some voters who strongly disapprove of Rutte 2 but didn't quite want to vote FvD/PVV (and eventually ended up voting CDA).

VVD has become a broader party over the years, but the VVD still has a very strong base with wealthy voters in Randstad commuter towns, D66 strongly overperforms with well-educated voters and CU base is loyal (where else would they go lol?). But CDA performs relatively well across all educational and income groups, so a large amount of their voters might be relatively hostile to Rutte 3 compared to the generally more affluent and educated VVD and D66 voters.

Then again, D66 also is losing with left-leaning voters who don't like the corporate tax cuts or the repeal of the dividend tax. There seems to be a decent gap between D66 voters and the D66 leadership when it comes to economic issues. The ''marriage'' between wealthy centrist professionals and more left-leaning D66 voters worked when Pechtold was a charismatic leader who repositioned dying D66 as a staunchly anti-PVV party or when everyone acknowledged that the budget deficit had to be reduced, but I guess a lot of left-leaning D66 voters are disappointed that the current government is following the VVD line on corporate taxes. Though I might want to add that calculations showed that the policies in the coalition agreement wouldn't increase inequality .

Why is the CDA doing so badly?

It's something that always happens in a center-right coalition, the main center right party gains votes from the minor ones.

Additionnally, VVD fits the Netherlands much more than CDA. The Netherlands is the country of drugs after all, not of zealous christians.

CDA isn't really a party for zealous christians though, for that we have SGP and CU. Maybe the most conservative Catholics vote CDA, but that's it. CDA is rather silent on things like abortion (iirc they want to ban it at 22 weeks instead of 24 weeks lol), and the only hot button social issue is ''voltooid leven'' (an even more liberal euthanasia law), which also is opposed by the SP iirc. Buma's rather nationalist and communitarian campaign should have worked rather well on paper actually. But the VVD also ran a good campaign, things were going relatively well (so maybe Buma was too pessimistic) and Rutte got a late boost with the Turkey row.

Electoral geographer Josse de Voogd aptly worded the appeal of the VVD btw. The VVD generally gets the mood of the electorate when it comes to social issues and values: secular and socially liberal, but also conservative on cultural issues (but not in a PVV-way). The VVD might be a bit too ''neoliberal'' for the average voter, but they message it in a very appealing way (''roll up your sleeves and let's fix things'').

[mvd10]

Anyway, we only ever post peil.nl polls here since peil is the only pollster with weekly polls. Ipsos still had the CDA on 16 seats in their last poll a month ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_Dutch_general_election

[mvd10]

VVD MP Han ten Broeke just resigned. Apparently he had a relationship with a political assistant in 2013. The woman claimed that the relationship was ''unequal'' since she was in her 20s while ten Broeke was a 44-year old MP. Last week ten Broeke also ran into trouble when HP de Tijd wrote an article about him not reporting some of his business activities.

In 2013 the case was resolved by ten Broeke and VVD fraction leader Halbe Zijlstra who apparently talked with the woman and they convinced her to refrain from reporting it to the police, but HP de Tijd found out anyway and he decided to resign before the sh**t hits the van.

Anyway, the rumour that ''something'' happened which meant ten Broeke would never become minister has been going for a while by now and I believe David even posted something about ten Broeke being caught with a fraction assistant, so for all of your scoops please continue visiting this thread .

[mvd10]

I'm too lazy to explain the full workings of the dividend tax and I actually don't know that much about international tax rules (anything >>>>>> tax accounting even though I had a 9 for accounting, sorry ), but basically because of tax deals only shareholders in countries who don't have a tax deal with us would profit.

If I'm an German investor (30% dividend tax rate iirc) and I invest in shares of a Dutch company the company would withold the 15% Dutch dividend tax and I'd also pay the German 30% dividend tax rate. But I'd be able to get a rebate on any dividend taxes in excess of the 30% from the German tax authorities, so I'd only pay 30% (15% to the Dutch government, 15% to the German government). If the Netherlands abolishes the dividend tax I'd pay the 30% German tax rate but I wouldn't get a rebate so basically the tax cut goes to the German government. But in countries without a dividend tax there usually is no rebate, so it would benefit British investors (or investors from the Cayman Islands...). I believe they estimated that about 25% of the money would go to actual foreign investors, 75% would go to foreign governments (which doesn't help us at all obviously).

The reason Shell and Unilever want this is because they have very close connections to both the UK and the Netherlands, so they have a sizable contingent of British shareholders and it's rather attractive for them to move to the UK because of the dividend tax rules. You also have a lot of large funds which aren't actually British but have British subsidiaries because of tax rules (UBS asset management, BlackRock, etc). I guess having more acess to their funds would be nice, but I doubt this justifies a 2 billion tax cut and I really doubt whether Rutte should choose to die on this hill. Just cut the corporate tax or so.

Anyway, I'm also not sure whether D66 would have been much better off in a centre-left government without the VVD (what would it even look like? CDA-D66-GL-SP-PvdA-CU lmao?). They probably would be slightly better off electorally, but let's not forget that in most hypothetical horserace Rutte vs Klaver/Asscher/Samsom polls like 40-50% of D66 voters would vote for Rutte so there is a sizable percentage of D66 voters that probably would feel awkward in a left-wing government. VVD-CDA-D66-GL definitely would have been best for D66 electorally.

Pechtold also has a bit of a scandal. He had a short-lived relationship with a former D66 municipal council member and now the woman claims she was pregnant and Pechtold threatened to defame her if she didn't get an abortion. It's probably a bullsh**t story, but it's rather bad for Pechtold I suppose. Rumour has it that he might even resign in October, but I'm not sure about that.

I think the asylum thing might have negative effects on the VVD on the long term. One might think that the current 18-20% of the voters that claims to support the VVD despite the little scandals, Rutte fatigue and the dividend tax is the hardcore VVD base but that's not necessarily true. At several points during Rutte 2 the VVD was polling at 13-15%. The VVD base might not rebel over scandals or the dividend tax, but they do rebel when either their own financial interests are under attack (means-tested healthcare premiums) or when the VVD is seen as too soft on crime/immigration. If more of these cases pop up I wouldn't be surprised if the VVD drops to late 2015 levels.

[mvd10]

A few days ago 7 people in Arnhem and Weert have been arrested, they are suspected of planning to commit a terrorist attack during a major event (unknown which event). Police found AK-47s and other weapons in their houses. 1 of the suspected terrorists already was sentenced for trying to travel to IS territory, but apparently he was released on probation. The police has been monitoring these people since April because of an AIVD tip. Arnhem (city in Gelderland with 150,000 inhabitants) has an unusually large amount of radicalized Muslims, I believe there is no place outside the Randstad where more people travelled to IS territory than Arnhem.

Some trouble in the coalition. Last year the coalition enthusiastically announced they wanted to be the greenest cabinet ever, but it looks like VVD and CDA didn't really realize how much money the energy transition was going to cost taxpayers. VVD and CDA on the one side and D66 and CU on the other side haven't reached an agreement on how to reduce carbon emissions yet.

[mvd10]

Another hit for Rutte: Unilever very likely will not relocate to the Netherlands. British shareholders blocked the move because relocating to the Netherlands would mean Unilever wouldn't be in the FTSE anymore. Shareholders fear that this would mean that British shareholders would sell their Unilever stocks (people love tracking index funds) which would cause Unilever to drop. The government already is reconsidering repealing the dividend tax because of this. I guess this was the reason they needed to finally drop it lol.

The whole HQ debate was stupid in my opinion anyway. This never was about the HQ, nobody should have cared about the symbolical Unilever HQ and the 30 jobs that came with it. The only possible justification of this tax cut could be the effect it has on the cost of capital. Even though most economists seemed to oppose it, there were 2 economists who openly supported it. They built a model based on the theory that the marginal investor (the last investor to buy a certain stock, the ones with the lowest returns) eventually decides the stock price. Since the dividend tax heavily/only falls on those ''marginal investors'' (basically the unfortunate few who do have to pay the dividend tax) it's rather inefficient and raises the cost of capital, unlike general income or corporate taxes which fall on everyone and therefore are less distortionary. But their model is rather abstract and I don't know whether it's enough to justify the tax cut, there also seems to be a lot of empirical evidence against repealing the dividend tax (ugh, I should stop since at this rate I'll be rambling about the Lucas Critique and deep parameters soon lmao). In the end dropping the tax repeal probably was the best thing. Politically it definitely was the best thing lol.

A weird thing happened. The MIVD (military intelligence service) caught 4 Russian spies who tried to spy on the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague. The Russian spies made a lot of blunders. They arrived on false passports with almost identical serial numbers, they always were together, they had taxi vouchers with the address of the Russian secret service, etc.

[mvd10]

I (as always) agree with David's analysis. I don't know whether Kaag is really suitable to be a party leader, she's new in politics and she might prefer being minister over getting really political (though her speech seems to suggest something else). If Kaag wants it it probably is hers though, I imagine they definitely want a woman if possible lol (and the circlejerk over Kaag's speech was astounding). Ollongren is hated by too many people, Jetten and Paternotte are too inexperienced. If Kaag (or another minister) becomes party leader they'll also need a new fraction leader. Maybe that's something for Jetten. Jetten definitely was seen as the crown prince, even more so than Paternotte imo. Maybe Pia Dijkstra for fraction leader? But she's probably too old and I don't think she's interested. She could be a placeholder for Jetten or Paternotte I suppose.

[mvd10]

It's starting to look very possible that D66 will just appoint a placeholder. Kaag and Ollongren are in cabinet so they can't be fraction leader and D66 might not want to appoint possible future leaders Jetten or Paternotte during a period of turmoil. My best guess is that a relatively experienced MP (Paul van Meenen?) becomes fraction leader as placeholder, either Sigrid Kaag or Kajsa Ollongren will become their lead candidate for the next general elections and after the inevitable loss Rob Jetten or Jan Paternotte (or foreign affairs spokesperson Sjoerd Sjoerdsma?) takes over. Since there are so many candidates you also have the danger of internal turmoil and leadership battles, which can harm both D66 and the coalition (if candidates try to pander to D66 voters who don't like this coalition).

[mvd10]

I (as always) agree with David's analysis. I don't know whether Kaag is really suitable to be a party leader, she's new in politics and she might prefer being minister over getting really political (though her speech seems to suggest something else). If Kaag wants it it probably is hers though, I imagine they definitely want a woman if possible lol (and the circlejerk over Kaag's speech was astounding). Ollongren is hated by too many people, Jetten and Paternotte are too inexperienced. If Kaag (or another minister) becomes party leader they'll also need a new fraction leader. Maybe that's something for Jetten. Jetten definitely was seen as the crown prince, even more so than Paternotte imo. Maybe Pia Dijkstra for fraction leader? But she's probably too old and I don't think she's interested. She could be a placeholder for Jetten or Paternotte I suppose.

Well, I atleast got something right . I imagine Jetten will be end up being the lijsttrekker/leader too, there is little point in choosing a relatively inexperienced but very promising person like Jetten as party leader if you don't atleast intend him to be lijsttrekker and face of the party in the future. If they wanted Kaag or Ollongren as lead candidate they probably would have picked someone who looks more like a placeholder (more experienced MP with less leadership ambitions).

[mvd10]

There are several hospitals relatively close to the bankrupt hospitals and all patients found places in nearby hospitals while personnel of the closed hospitals very likely will find work at nearby hospitals. It's a sad situation, but it isn't like there are thousands of people without any access to good healthcare. Before being privatized these hospitals were racking up huge losses (but then the government subsidized it). Those hospitals went bankrupt because patients went to other hospitals with better reputations and a higher quality of care. It looks like there just was a surplus of hospitals in Flevoland and the Amsterdam region. That being said, it's still a very sad situation of course. Even though the bankruptcy of these hospitals might not be that bad if you put it into perspective it's fully understandable why people living close to these hospitals (or the people working there) are angry.

[mvd10]

I'd caution with predicting doom by the way. The last couple of elections the end results have differed significantly from polling a few months before. In 2017 the PVV was polling in first while VVD was polling at 25 seats, but in the end VVD-CDA-D66-CU got a majority despite not having polled a majority in a single poll after the refugee crisis in August 2015. There was a last minute swing towards the VVD because of the Turkey row, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of the swing would have happened anyway because in the end voters wanted a party that could get some things done (as opposed to the PVV whose only purpose is to push the overton window to the right during elections). A few weeks before the 2012 election SP and VVD were tied at 23% with PvdA at 12% or so, in the end the result was 27% VVD, 25% PvdA and 10% for the SP. In 2010 there also were rather wild swings. At first CDA was in first with PVV in second, then PvdA surged after announcing popular Amsterdam mayor Cohen would be their candidate and in the end VVD (who were polling at historic lows in 2008 and 2009) surged and took it because of their relatively strong campaign which focused on the issues (voters appreciated it). In 2006 you had a similar government (CDA-VVD-D66 instead of VVD-CDA-D66-CU) which also pushed for unpopular policies and was seen as a government that didn't care about the poor. At one point a poll had the PvdA at 60 seats (!), but in the end they won 33 seats (SP won a whopping 25 seats though) and the CDA had a relatively easy election victory. Heck, even the VVD polled at 30-35 seats at one stage of the campaign because of the media attention the Rutte vs Verdonk leadership battle got, they ended up winning 22 and after the 2006 election they had a few terrible years (yet they won in 2010). The Dutch electorate is very volatile, so don't be surprised if the next general elections produce a completely different result.

Then again, the 2015 provincial elections already gave a rather splintered result (with VVD as the largest party with 16% of the vote) and I don't really see how any party will get a dominating result in the provincial elections (yeah, at this stage winning 20% of the vote is dominating lol). The coalition will almost certainly lose its majority in the senate and a new coalition would need a senate majority anyway, so I guess that even if in the 2021 (or 2019/2020) elections voters swing behind 1 party and produce a relatively stable result there still would be a ideologically incoherent coalition (VVD-CDA-D66-GL-CU or so) or a coalition without a senate majority.

And the country isn't falling apart because of the large amount of parties lol. If we had FPTP we'd probably end up with only a few parties just like the UK or the US. We might for example see a centre-right movement with parts of CDA and D66 coalesce around the VVD, but that party also would be prone to infighting (just look at the current Tory infighting or the Labour infighting in 2016) while now VVD, CDA and D66 work together relatively harmoniously. FPTP or whatever would just swap tough coalition negotiations for party infighting.

[mvd10]

I don't remember if this has been answered recently, but are there any debate on removing the senate, or at least the powers it has? A fully proportional electoral system is a holy virtue that should be protected at every cost, but there is little reason to complicate things with an additional chamber with a "mid-term election".

There are some people who want to do it, but it isn't going to happen because changing the Dutch constitution is extremely hard and in the end most parties oppose it. But there are a lot of people who think the Senate has become too political (originally it was meant to check whether laws are enforceable and in line with the constitution).

Buma harshly attacked VVD healthcare minister Bruins over the closing hospitals. He said ''liberaal rendementsdenken'' (liberal efficiency thinking, keep in mind that over here liberals are ''neoliberals'') caused the closing of these hospitals and that hospitals are more than a bunch of buildings. He did caution against left-wing healthcare plans though, he says society rather than the state should work things out. This isn't the first time Buma attacked the VVD over economic issues, he also said similar things about the VVD's labour market policies 2 years ago. The CDA's drop in the polls is underreported imo. It makes sense considering the CDA has a way higher share of ''boze burgers'' (''angry citizens'') than VVD, D66 or even CU, and this government probably hasn't done a lot to win the confidence of these voters. Unlike Pechtold or Segers (CU leader) Buma always railed against Rutte 2, and I bet there are a lot of culturally conservative voters who liked Buma's opposition to Rutte 2 but now are disappointed in the CDA.

[mvd10]

There definitely would be tactical voting. 2012 might be more interesting for a FPTP map as there was some tactical voting, but even there FPTP would have caused even more tactical voting and some changes in seats.

Even while keeping the exact same result I imagine 2012 would have produced only VVD and PvdA MP's. PvdA in the big cities (with maybe some VVD seats in the richer parts of the big cities. Now I think of it there definitely would be atleast 1 VVD seat in The Hague), poorer cities in the east and all the seats in the northern 3 provinces while the VVD wins everything else (from wealthy suburbs to religious areas to your ''average'' Dutch town). 2017 would have been a VVD slaughterfest. I think someone wrote an article on it, VVD would have won 70% of the seats with this result. Only some regional strongholds wouldn't go for the VVD. Oost-Groningen (very poor) for the SP, West-Friesland and Oost-Overijssel (religious but not in the SGP Bible Belt and loads of farmers) for the CDA, Limburg (poor and Wilders is from there) for the PVV, big university cities would be split between GL and D66 and maybe DENK would win 1 or 2 seats in heavily minority areas.

If you assume tactical voting in 2012 results would look broadly the same, but I guess West-Friesland might go VVD because even though the PvdA was biggest there the CDA is rather strong there and VVD+CDA probably outweighs the combined left (shamelessly assuming CDA voters would go VVD in a borderline two-party system). The Amsterdam-Zuid seat (assuming there would be one lol, idk how the gerrymandering would work) definitely would go for the left. There the VVD might have been the biggest party, but the rest of the right usually has pathetic showings in these areas, so the combined left is stronger than the combined right. It's worth noting that even in the wealthiest neighborhoods in Amsterdam you have pockets of deprivation, this is why the VVD didn't even crack 25% in Amsterdam-Zuid or 30% in the Grachtengordel. Those areas might be wealthy, but they're also highly unequal. I think I once saw a CBS document where they outlined the average income and some stats about income deciles from all neighborhoods in the Netherlands. Some wealthy Amsterdam neighborhoods had the highest per capita incomes of the entire country, but they also actually had more people in the bottom 40% of the income distribution than people in the top 20%, I guess that's where their leftist lean comes from. The wealthy urban progressive bobo vote exists, but those types mostly went for D66 instead of the actual left. Or maybe even VVD considering the VVD Amsterdam is/was the most left-wing local VVD chapter in the entire country (maybe they'll become more right-wing in opposition).

I really don't know how 2017 would have looked like with tactical voting. Maybe a combined left that does much better in the cities and wealthy areas than in 2012 while doing even worse in the rest of the country? Something like the recent trends in the UK and US (ugh comparative politics )? It's extremely hard to say. I guess D66 would be screwed since their voters would be split 50/50 between the VVD and the new PvdA/GL/SP party. But it's really impossible to say (and it's a bit of a pointless debate since we will never have FPTP again).

When we had FPTP back in the 1800s we had a two-round system by the way. That would complicate things even further lol.

[mvd10]

Anonymous sources within CDA and D66 have said that there will be new elections in case Mark Rutte leaves for the EU. Rutte himself has repeatedly denied he will go for an EU job in 2019, but denials often don't mean that much and Mark Rutte basically is the perfect candidate to succeed Tusk (Merkel allegedly already wanted him to take the job in 2014).

CDA and D66 are currently losing in the polls and their bases aren't terribly happy with Rutte 3, so I guess it makes sense that they'd take an opportunity like this to back out. Rutte also is a great dealmaker, while Rutte might be able to keep things together it's unclear whether Klaas Dijkhoff or Edith Schippers (who seem like the most likely candidates to succeed Rutte) would be able to do the same. Especially Dijkhoff has been building a rather right-wing image over the past few months (suggesting we adopt the Danish model for problem neighborhoods, cutting welfare, etc). This doesn't necessarily say how we will govern as a PM, but it does show that he might be a little more confrontational, right-wing and partisan than Rutte. Edith Schippers inevitably also will be mentioned and I guess the VVD leadership would prefer her since she's more experienced (and she's also solidly right-wing on the issues). She left politics in 2017 and later turned down the opportunity to become foreign affairs minister because she wanted to spend more time with her daughter, but the prime ministership obviously is the jackpot so I wonder whether she would also turn that down. If Rutte had gone to Brussels in 2014 Schippers would have been his successor, the VVD leadership did prepare for that back in the day. Edith Schippers would be the first Dutch female prime minister in case she becomes PM btw.

But it's all just speculation and the Dutch tend to vastly overestimate the importance of our PM's once they've been in office for several years. Balkenende and Lubbers desperately wanted an EU job, but in the end they got passed over for several reasons (and Lubbers also got passed over for the NATO top job). Even Wim Kok was a candidate to lead the European Commission in 1999 (but I guess this wasn't as painfully obvious as Lubbers 1994 or Balkenende 2009 since I can't find a lot on it). It's unclear whether Kok declined the offer or whether they passed him over btw, I'm reading conflicting sources lol.

[mvd10]

A few things happened the past month.

Klaas Dijkhoff was voted politician of the year. Over the year he launched several ''trial balloons'' (test plans). Building new nuclear power plants, adopting the Danish approach to problem neighborhoods, etc. His plans were widely ridiculed by the media and his opponents, but apparently they did hit a chord with voters. As of now Dijkhoff is the likely successor to Rutte, but it's starting to look like Rutte actually will stay as Dutch PM (instead of going to Brussels) and for all we know he might run for a fourth term. We can't count out Schippers either, it's well-known that Rutte and certain people in the VVD leadership really want Schippers to succeed Rutte. There probably are a lot of people who feel like Dijkhoff isn't really ready for it yet anyway.

A week ago trade union FNV and some environmental organizations walked away from the climate agreement negotiations because they felt big corporations (the main polluters) wouldn't pay enough. This might become a problem for the coalition in general. CU and CDA are worried about the effects measures to combat climate change will have on the lower middle-class (a decent chunk of the Christian democratic base), while VVD voters don't like being taxed in general. I think FvD leader Baudet actually said that combatting the ''climate madness'' is one of his top 2 priorities, he is afraid that expensive subsidies for green energy won't work and that tax increases on polluting activity (which will disproportionally affect middle-class and working-class citizens) also will be in vain considering we're such a small country (assuming other countries don't take measures to reduce pollution). Wilders also strongly opposes the coalition's climate goals because it likely would warrant big tax increases or expensive subsidies for green energy. But Baudet focuses on this more and he probably is the bigger electoral threat for VVD/CDA to begin with.

CDA leader Sybrand Buma also warned for the emergence of a ''climate elite''. In light of recent events (yellow vests in France) his warning almost seems prophetic lol. He warned that the same ''elite'' that sees globalization as an opportunity also is willing to sacrifice everything for sustainability, without taking into account the effects it would have on society as a whole. Dramatically reducing pollutions can only be achieved by either heavily subsidizing things like electric cars (which would mainly benefit this ''elite'') or by increasing taxes on fuel or things like that (which would hurt a lot of lower income people). Buma is afraid that this will further create a rift in society and that we might even see a ''Fortuyn-esque'' revolt (this time as a rebellion against climate agreements rather than immigration). Like I said: in light of recent events his words almost sound prophetic. Sadly for him the CDA still is stuck at a low point in the polls.

Tbh I'm pretty sure Tesla drivers are solid VVD voters rather than GL/D66 voters since Tesla's are so ridiculously expensive, but I guess you get the point (and the few Hummer drivers we have probably are even more likely to vote VVD ).

[mvd10]

It's obviously campaign time again (provincial elections). The provincial elections also indirectly determine senate control, so they are very important.

First of all I expect the coalition to slightly outperform the polls. Turnout for provincial elections usually is lower than turnout for general elections (the 2015 provincial election had 48% turnout, the 2017 general election had 82% turnout). A few of the biggest opposition parties rely on voters who might not be inclined to vote (GroenLinks relies young voters, SP relies on poor voters, etc). This while the coalition parties have very loyal voters (CDA/CU have high-turnout religious voters, VVD/D66 skew wealthy and well-educated). Especially CDA voters always vote, so I expect them to overperform by a fair margin.

The VVD's campaign already started apparently. A few days ago Dijkhoff surprised everyone by saying that he distances himself from the climate agreement. Dijkhoff says that the agreement is just a starting point and that the government will consider the proposals. Dijkhoff doesn't want the average Dutch person to pay too much for this. Dijkhoff did say that he still completely supports the goals of the climate agreement (reducing carbon emissions), he's just worried about the effects it will have on Dutch households.

A day later Rutte attacked the ''white wine-sipping elite in Amsterdam''. He says that the Netherlands should just work with Trump's America and that Trump realizes not everything went well with globalization while this ''elite from Amsterdam'' constantly criticizes Trump. This may sound ironic coming from the leader of a party whose strongest precinct is located in a neighborhood with an average house price of 1.5 million euros (de Kieviet in Wassenaar, 67% VVD) but keep in mind that's probably not the elite Rutte is referring too. A relatively poor journalist can be influential and part of ''the elite'' in a way a rich banker who lives an otherwise quiet life isn't. It's about the cultural elite more than the economic elite.

While the VVD may look like the party of the wealthy Randstad suburbs (and wealthy Randstad suburbs still is peak VVD country, the top 5 VVD municipalities are the top 5 richest municipalities too lol), the VVD obviously is much bigger than that. If you compare the VVD results from 1994 with the VVD results in 2017 (in both elections they won about 20% of the vote) you will see some stark differences. In big cities (who're quite poor here by the way) and affluent suburbs the VVD lost some ground, but they won big in former CDA areas like Noord-Brabant or Overijssel. VVD and PVV voters might look completely different demographically, but I suspect that the ''new'' VVD voters in the non-Randstad areas of the country are way more susceptible to the PVV than the ''old'' VVD voters in Amstelveen or whatever. FvD also is very dangerous for the VVD, they're like a more respectable version of the PVV. The fact that the VVD can win big in Randstad suburbs and has strong performances in the more middle-class ''average'' places of the country is why the VVD is the only party that won more than 20% of the vote in 2017. If they want to keep their dominant position in Dutch politics they'll need to keep winning voters in Etten-Leur (one of the famous ''average'' towns here ) too, and for that they'll need a more right-wing, populist tone.

Another controversy in Dutch politics was the fact that several prominent SGP members (including leader Kees van der Staaij) signed the controversial Nashville statement. The Nashville statement says some things about how religious people should approach LGBT issues. I won't talk about this a lot, you can look up what the statement says on your own. But in deeply secular the Netherlands this obviously wasn't very popular. A pollster polled it and we got some interesting results. Apparently 10% of Dutch voters still is uncomfortable with gay marriage (16% of CDA voters, 21% of PVV voters) and 10% agreed with the Nashville statement (18% of CDA voters). The sample of SGP voters was too small, but nearly all SGP voters agreed with the Nashville statement so Kees van der Staaij won't run into trouble with his own voters. Apparently CU voters were closer to CDA voters than SGP voters, which is interesting. Another interesting thing is that 28% of Dutch people agrees with the statement ''the media are too positive about homosexuals and transgenders''. 42% of CDA voters, 38% of PVV voters, 32% of FvD voters and even 25% of VVD voters agreed. I actually wish they made the question solely about transgenders, the results would be more interesting then. SSM hasn't been an issue since 2001 and homosexuality has been almost fully accepted here, so adding that to the statement probably turned off a lot of people who're still sceptical about transgenders.

[mvd10]

Why has there been an upswing in the PVDA’s polling numbers? We’re the voters just protest voting when they brought the party down to a single digit? Or has the party fixed their reputation?

They're not in government and the government parties lost a combined 20-25 seats so they were bound to recover a bit. PvdA still is at only 10 to 13 seats depending on the poll, I wouldn't call that a big upswing. I imagine they mainly drew (older?) D66 voters.

I think the PvdA collapse was inevitable anyway, even without the VVD-PvdA government it would have happened. In 2005 the PvdA was polling at 60 (!) seats because there was an inpopular CDA-VVD-D66 government, but from that moment it all went downhill (and arguably the 1990s PvdA governments are the root of the problem lol). They won 33 seats in the 2006 election and they entered a coalition with CDA and CU. By late 2009/early 2010 they already were polling at historic lows (first peil.nl poll in 2010 had them at 14 seats) and it looked like they'd be demolished the next election. But they collapsed the coalition and appointed popular Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen as their lead candidate. The 2010 campaign also was a bit of a rollecoaster for the PvdA but in the end they still won 30 seats. Cohen and the PvdA turned out to be horrible in opposition (VVD-CDA government with PVV support) and before long they were polling at 15-20 seats again. They dropped Cohen and appointed Diederik Samsom as their new leader, but initially not much changed. Samsom turned out to be a brilliant debater and the PvdA surged the last two weeks of the 2012 campaign, so once again a popular leader saved their ass.

Honestly, I think the PvdA collapse already should have happened in 2010 or 2012. The PvdA already had to juggle between satisfying working-class voters who're sceptical about immigration, middle-class centrists who don't want to rock the boat and new, young progressives. The middle-class people actually are fairly influential within the PvdA, if you look at the 2012 exit polls by income you see that VVD is way stronger with wealthy voters than the PvdA is with poor voters while the PvdA is a lot stronger with wealthy voters than the VVD is with poor voters. I think David once said this was caused by the PvdA having to attract more than just workers since religious workers (especially Catholic workers) massively voted for the Christian parties.

GroenLinks rising is a bigger story imo. GroenLinks is nowhere near as big as the PvdA was, but I think you can call them the main party of the Dutch left by now. I wonder how the 2019 map will look like for GroenLinks. D66 is losing so you'd expect GroenLinks to gain in places where D66 was strong. D66 and GroenLinks overlap in student areas and gentrifying neighborhoods, but D66 has fairly strong support in wealthy VVD-voting suburban municipalities too while GroenLinks often isn't very strong in those areas. I wonder whether D66's losses will be concentrated with young urban voters and GroenLinks will gain even more in the big cities or whether D66's losses will be relatively proportional and GroenLinks will gain support in wealthy municipalities too.

I still think the PvdA is the only left-wing party that can win over 30 seats. The Dutch left can't rely on the minorities + urban affluent progressives coalition like the Democratic Party, they'll need to win over more reluctant working-class voters, and that will be easier for the PvdA than for GroenLinks. Then again, the Netherlands also has a growing populace of university/HBO-educated voters, so if our political system slightly ''Americanizes'' it'd make sense to have GroenLinks as the main left-wing party rather than a worker's party . GroenLinks voters aren't that wealthy though, it's mainly students and less affluent university graduates. The PvdA does have a big issue with it's image though, I don't think anyone still thinks they stand for something. They've had this problem for quite a while though, it's not just the 2012-2017 government that did it.

The FvD map also will be interesting to see. In 2017 they won only 2 seats but I'm going to assume their map will look broadly similar to their 2017 map (basically start with the PVV map, but less support in poor left-behind areas like Limburg and Oost-Groningen and more support with ideologically right-wing former VVD/CDA-voters in the rest of the country).

We decided to make another simultaneous post apparently. Lol.

[mvd10]

There are some issues in the coalition now. Apparently all major parties are not happy with Dijkhoff's and the VVD's stance on the climate agreement (remember, Dijkhoff criticized the agreement and said he doesn't want the average person to pay for it). Apparently even CDA is not happy with it even though I expected the CDA to side with the VVD considering the CDA probably is the mainstream party with the most ''disenganged/angry voters''.

VVD obviously does this to prevent a CDA/PvdA-esque collapse. PvdA and CDA didn't stand for anything and collapsed as a consequence of that, so the VVD desperately want to brush up its right-wing image. Now you might wonder whether this is smart since I don't see many FvD/PVV voters going back to the VVD now, but I guess it atleast somewhat prevents a further outflow. And remember that the VVD was polling at historic lows for the entire 2012-2017 period, yet in the end a lot of right-wing voters ''came home''. I guess that's what they want now too, they might be reminding people that they didn't sell out completely in order to set the stage for a March 2017 redux.

I do somewhat worry about government formations post-Rutte. Rutte is slick and he can work with everyone. But if Dijkhoff's more right-wing and confrontational style already causes problems in VVD-CDA-D66-CU, what about governments that include GL and PvdA? It took 6 months to get a VVD-CDA-D66-CU government (mainly because parties deliberately stalled the negotiations to give us the idea that they really fought for their ideals even though they also could have finished within 1 month...), but VVD-CDA-D66-CU probably is a lot easier than VVD-CDA-D66-GL-PvdA. Rutte could make it work, but could Dijkhoff do the same? Maybe Dijkhoff grows in his role though. He's fraction leader now after all, and the role of the VVD fraction leader basically is to be the right-wing attack dog . I do somewhat wonder whether Dijkhoff is considering an eventual coalition with CDA and FvD (and PVV too assuming they still exist in a few years). It's obviously too soon for that now, but perhaps a few years of GroenLinks growing and polarization increasing could do the trick. Jesse Klaver (GroenLinks leader) has always been open about wanting a cabinet with the left-wing parties and the Christian Democratic parties, therefore excluding the VVD. Now the CDA obviously doesn't want this, but if this happens it'd be a great way to get the VVD closer to FvD lol (and to completely demolish CDA...).

[mvd10]

How does provincial control look like as of now? And what are your predictions for the new provincial elections? (at least the most interesting provinces)

Provincial control isn't very important here. Provinces do the roads but other than that? I'm fairly sure we have 1 or 2 provincial coalitions with both VVD and SP, that should say enough (there also was a D66-VVD-SP coalition in the municipality of Amsterdam but that's another story...). I couldn't even name all 12 King's Commissioners lol. Municipal control is more important. Remember Rutte saying that it felt like Amsterdam was ''lost'' after a very left-wing coalition took power. Or the drama in Rotterdam where the very successful local populist party Leefbaar Rotterdam was excluded and we got a very big ''everybody but Leefbaar''-coalition instead. Provincial coalition formations will never draw that much attention.

The opposition will try to ''nationalize'' this election anyway. Some people might vote VVD in municipal elections because they like their VVD alderman for example, but nobody is going to vote because they like their provincial coalition lol. The real important thing is senate control. Members of the provincial councils will elect the senate, so this election will determine senate control. Opposition parties such as GroenLinks or PVV will try to nationalize this election and highlight it as an opportunity to weaken the centre-right coalition.

Election results probably will closely mirror a hypothetical general election result because of this.

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedeputeerde_Staten

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