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

[crals]

It's quite remarkable how there's such a large number of parties and yet they only occupy 2 quadrants of the graph. What is the difference between the left/right and progressive/conservative axis supposed to be?

[crals]

Very surprising to hear that the narrative is suddenly one of a two horse race between Wilders and Timmermans (especially since those two aren't even clearly ahead of the rest of the pack). Omtzigt held a high level of support for a long time despite having a lot going against him, so it really seemed that, unlike BBB, he was going to avoid the usual fate of collapsing once voters get past the projection stage. Oh well.

[crals]

Oof. Perhaps Omtzigt's idea of a government of experts wasn't so crazy after all...

[crals]

Wilders definitely won, by a very clear margin, more than anyone else lost. That’s the only possible narrative from this election, anything else is cope.

All things considered, a government with PVV involvement (not necessarily led by Wilders or even including PVV) is the only option that doesn't subvert the democratic will. Wilders seems to be open to compromise on the most controversial aspects of his platform and Omtzigt's speech seemed to imply he will at least negotiate. I'm expecting some sort of PVV-VVD-NSC-BBB agreement.

[crals]

Such a blatantly opportunistic maneuver so soon after an election would almost certainly backfire. That newfound support for Wilders is very soft.