Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: coalition agreement presented

[Angel of Death]

I have a hard time seeing how any plausible, let alone remotely stable, coalition could be formed if an election would result in anything resembling the current polls. The closest I can come up with is a VVD-CDA-D66 minority government. For that reason alone, any reasonable person should hope the next election is still far away.

[Angel of Death]

Latest meta-poll:

[Angel of Death]

The funny thing is that if Wilders does do great in the next election, it will be the right (i.e. VVD and CDA) that's going to have a real problem, not the left.

[Angel of Death]

Supposing that D66 successfully implemented FPTP, who would win seats? Obviously the party system would be different, but any guesses?

D66 was never in favor of electing the lower house (purely) by FPTP; the original idea was to introduce (multi-member) constituencies, which I assume would have implied STV. The idea to have half of the seats be elected by FPTP was a more recent proposal. Without a constitutional amendment modifying the mandatory use of (some sort of) proportional representation (article 53), that would have implied enacting some sort of additional member system (à la Germany).

[Angel of Death]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participation_criterion#Quorum_requirements

[Angel of Death]

The latest peilingwijzer:

And here is an online tool to find the theoretical majority coalitions for a given distribution of seats. The (ideological) coherence of these will also be scored closer to the election.

The polls are indeed not looking good in terms of governability.

[Angel of Death]

A (mostly) nonpartisan government of technocrats (like one Monti lead in Italy) might possibly provide a solution after the next election, although you have to go back to the 19th century for Dutch examples.

[Angel of Death]

Honestly David, I have the feeling Wilders will become PM.

Where is he going to find 76 seats?

[Angel of Death]

Here's a thought: would PVV be doing better or worse if it had the same issues etc but was led by a more bland-Hofer like individual than the divisive Wilders? (Ignoring of course that a PVV without Wilders wouldn't actually be the PVV)

No, because the party would look too similar to the VVD then.

[Angel of Death]

The earlied mentioned "coalition checker" has used aforementioned voting guide to get to a crude compatibility score of the various possible coalitions: https://www.coalitiechecker.nl/verenigbaarheid
For more fun, try toying with the text area in the upper left, which lists the mutually excluded parties.

[Angel of Death]

As crude and flawed that coalition compatibility calculator might be, one cannot help but marvel at how much it is showing the PvdA to be in a position of power after the next election, even after losing two-thirds of their seats. Only D66 is coming close in that regard.

[Angel of Death]

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In Geert's case of course, the hammer is playing the victim. This guy has no intention whatsoever of ever being constructive in his political life.

[Angel of Death]

In this time of global populist fervor, the most underplayed story of this election has to be the quite lousy performance of the SP and that, despite the imminent collapse of the PvdA. It's hard to pin this entirely on the seemingly uncharismatic Roemer.

[Angel of Death]

The phrase "Kopvodden." on that billboard is not between quotes, meaning that one can no less easily interpret the message as opposition to headscarves rather than the term itself. It seems that, when it comes to the VVD campaign, any supposedly anti-PVV sloganeering always has to be ambiguous.

[Angel of Death]

In a twisted sense, this is a stroke of genius by the Erdoğan regime. They knew that the added sensitivity of the imminent Dutch election would help provoke this diplomatic incident, allowing them to incite the nationalistic sentiment that will help them win their referendum. It's Putin-tier in its reckless audacity.

[Angel of Death]

My gut tells me this will hardly affect the election, given the Dutch are closing ranks on this.

[Angel of Death]

The Pirate Party is now getting a seat from another poller.

[Angel of Death]

Denk pulling out of the debate is completely incomprehensible. What possible risk could there have been for them participating? Almost any "incident" could only have been to their benefit.

[Angel of Death]

So the PvdA lost a humongous three quarters of their seats and the SP still didn't manage to profit from that?? Talk about Epic Fail!

[Angel of Death]

What was the Pirate Party's best municipality?

[Angel of Death]

Poor Austria. Everybody is crediting the Dutch as the first to go against the populism that brought your Brexit and Trump.

[Angel of Death]

The very fact that a coalition with the CU is possible weakens GroenLinks's negotiation position and only makes it further likely that the talks will fail. Chances are that this is all still for show and is taking place mostly to mollify D66.

[Angel of Death]

"Copayment" is the wrong term to use here; the healthcare issue concerns deductibles.

[Angel of Death]

It's the Dutch version of "taco trucks on every corner"!