Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: Rutte III era

[Zinneke]

Maurice de Hond poll

Momentum swinging from VVD to PVV although I imagine margin of error is being abused a bit for a headline. Corona and what happened at EU level could undo Rutte's goodwill. I heard that the situation in the NL was just as bad as Belgium regarding Corona but that there was a much laxer reporting of the cases.

[Zinneke]

Kaag chosen as D66 list leader. She did eventually have token opposition in the form of Ton Visser. A guy with er...interesting ideas.

[Zinneke]

been a while since we had maps to look at

obesity rates vs socio-economic status

https://twitter.com/CardioTamara/status/1305045619350933504

[Zinneke]

https://www.politico.eu/article/pete-hoekstra-us-ambassador-under-fire-for-hosting-dutch-far-right-bash/

[Zinneke]

New polls in the Netherlands (Maurice de Hond)



Rather stable in the short term, but from a previous election perspective its quite clear D66 and CDA are being punished as so many have for being junior partners while Rutte gleams in the limelight. He has announced he will run again as list leader and candidate for Prime Minister. I think its fair to say he is one of the shrewdest political operators the country has seen for a while, given the difficult circumstances he has had to negotiate. The far right resurgence likely has to do with the Netherlands first real dose of hard lockdown. Note the new party : Code Oranje. Here is their (hilariously badly written, given how well the Dutch speak English) description on their website

Code Orange is a new political movement in the Netherlands, aiming to evolve the state of our democracy. The name Code Orange has two meanings.

First: when heavy weather is predicted and storms are coming, our weatherbroadcast speaks of Code Orange (the next phase is Code Red). With that association in mind we speak of Code Orange in our political system. More and more people decide not to vote at all, vote out of protest or do not vote wholeheartedly. Our analysis: the political system does not fit anymore with the mindset of our citizens. Years of education and emancipation, but also the transition into an age of information, asks for evolving forms of democracy.

Co-Democracy
This brings us to the second meaning of Code Orange. Code stands for Co-democracy: the democracy of coöperation and cocreation. New forms of on- and offline consultation, citizins assemblees and (p)referenda are knocking on our door to enrich the traditional representative democratic practices.

Code Orange points out these new democratic forms, which give our citizins the possibility to have more influence on their surroundings and on government policies than ‘one vote in four years’. In our modern society a representative vote for a political party is not enough. Citizins want more influence than that. The political systeem needs to be completed; needs te evolve. That is the plea of Code Orange.

People initiatives
In many city’s in our country, and in neighbouring countries as well, local initiatives and local government are succesfully experimenting with these new and transparant democratic forms. People initiatives are popping up more and more. The amount of cities organising citizins assemblees grow every day.

Code Orange strives to lift this movement up to the regional, national en European schale. Therefore people in the Netherlands now can vote for a movement that wants to increase their power and influence. At the last elections one out of houndred voters made this choice! Perhaps this is an idea for your country (or city) as well?

They seem to want a more localist platform and attract big shot lawyers, the type that really usually start their own “movement” alongside their practice.

[freek]

New polls in the Netherlands (Maurice de Hond)



Rather stable in the short term, but from a previous election perspective its quite clear D66 and CDA are being punished as so many have for being junior partners while Rutte gleams in the limelight. He has announced he will run again as list leader and candidate for Prime Minister. I think its fair to say he is one of the shrewdest political operators the country has seen for a while, given the difficult circumstances he has had to negotiate. The far right resurgence likely has to do with the Netherlands first real dose of hard lockdown. Note the new party : Code Oranje. Here is their (hilariously badly written, given how well the Dutch speak English) description on their website

Code Orange is a new political movement in the Netherlands, aiming to evolve the state of our democracy. The name Code Orange has two meanings.

First: when heavy weather is predicted and storms are coming, our weatherbroadcast speaks of Code Orange (the next phase is Code Red). With that association in mind we speak of Code Orange in our political system. More and more people decide not to vote at all, vote out of protest or do not vote wholeheartedly. Our analysis: the political system does not fit anymore with the mindset of our citizens. Years of education and emancipation, but also the transition into an age of information, asks for evolving forms of democracy.

Co-Democracy
This brings us to the second meaning of Code Orange. Code stands for Co-democracy: the democracy of coöperation and cocreation. New forms of on- and offline consultation, citizins assemblees and (p)referenda are knocking on our door to enrich the traditional representative democratic practices.

Code Orange points out these new democratic forms, which give our citizins the possibility to have more influence on their surroundings and on government policies than ‘one vote in four years’. In our modern society a representative vote for a political party is not enough. Citizins want more influence than that. The political systeem needs to be completed; needs te evolve. That is the plea of Code Orange.

People initiatives
In many city’s in our country, and in neighbouring countries as well, local initiatives and local government are succesfully experimenting with these new and transparant democratic forms. People initiatives are popping up more and more. The amount of cities organising citizins assemblees grow every day.

Code Orange strives to lift this movement up to the regional, national en European schale. Therefore people in the Netherlands now can vote for a movement that wants to increase their power and influence. At the last elections one out of houndred voters made this choice! Perhaps this is an idea for your country (or city) as well?

They seem to want a more localist platform and attract big shot lawyers, the type that really usually start their own “movement” alongside their practice.

Compared to the other pollsters, Maurice de Hond always seems to have much larger swings, especially for the more extreme parties. In the Peilingwijzer where the other 3 pollsters are averaged, VVD is at 42 seats, PVV at 21 and FVD at 6. The latest poll that was used there is from October 27 though.

The formation of new parties on the rightwing populist side is becoming quite hilarious now.

Last May Henk Krol from 50PLUS started the new Future Party, together with MP Femke Merel van Kooten (formerly PvdD). This resulted in this rather creepy picture.



A few months after, they were joined by Senator Henk Otten (formerly FVD). Van Kooten realized that Henk & Henk are quite right wing, and she left the Future Party within a few weeks. Last month, Henk Krol left the Future Party as well after some infighting with Otten, and he will start his own party now: Lijst Henk Krol. Otten essentially took over the Future Party with some of his associates, and plans to participate in the elections as well.

Code Oranje is also interesting. It already existed, and participated in the last province elections without much success. The party managed to find a new political leader. It is former PVV MP Richard de Mos. After leaving the PVV, he started his own local party in The Hague in 2013, named "Groep de Mos". Since 2018, it is the largest party in the council. De Mos became an alderman, but in 2019 he was arrested on corruption charges and was forced to resign. There were already rumours for some time surrounding his party regarding clientelism. De Mos denies all charges, and has not been prosecuted yet. And now De Mos is back in national politics with Code Oranje. His lawyer is #2 of the candidate list.

[freek]

Also interesting to see is the collapse of FVD. From just managing to get into parliament in 2017, it was the largest party in the province elections. Then, the infighting began. Senator and party treasurer Henk Otten (see above) criticized FVD leader Baudet. Baudets tendency for slightly racist, misogynistic or otherwise controversial statements harmed the party, according to Otten.

Since FVD claims to be a democratic party, Otten was immediately kicked out of the party. An MEP, several senators and members of provincial parliaments followed him. Baudet accused Otten of financial mismanagement as well.

This year, the COVID-19 views of FVD did not really help the party. At the beginning of the crisis in February/March, Baudet was strongly in favour of a lock down. The moment the country went into a partial lock down, FVD switched positions and became strongly against all COVID-19 measures. Since then, Baudet is drifting towards COVID-19 denying conspiracy theorists. His (former) supporters did not really seem to share these views, moving back to VVD or PVV.

At the same time, while critical of the handling of the COVID-19 crisis by the government, PVV was generally supportive of government measures. In typical PVV style, Wilders focused on  raises for health care personnel, and at the same time criticized the high percentage of COVID-19 patients with immigrant backgrounds on the Intensive care units.

[Zinneke]

Thanks for the clarifications, freek. I didn't realise Code Oranje was De Mos's vehicle. I just saw some headlines about how they were attracting the lawyer frat types.

I think Wilders has always had a talent for being more clear-sighted and an internal consistency with his views than Baudet, and indeed most far right European politicians. It explains his somewhat remarkable comeback and Baudet's collapse.

[Zinneke]

https://www.europenowjournal.org/2020/11/09/the-urban-rural-divide-in-political-attitudes-in-the-netherlands/

[Zinneke]

There were local elections in a few localities in Groningen province and North Brabant.

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/11/local-elections-pass-coronavirus-test-turnout-hardly-affected/

A number of local elections in Groningen and Noord-Brabant on Wednesday have tested the way forward for coronavirus-proof voting ahead of next March’s national vote, officials said on Thursday. The elections were called because of boundary changes and in all cases turnout was close to levels recorded in the last local elections in 2018, showing people were still happy to vote. In Groningen, three local authorities – Appingedam, Loppersum and Delfzijl – have been merged into a single region with the name Eemsdelta. Turnout was 44% and local parties won 11 seats on the new council, followed by Labour on five. Local parties also topped the polls in various Brabant local authority areas, including Vucht and Boxtel, where boundary changes have led to a rejig of council coverage. In total, 115,000 people were able to vote on Wednesday, with turnout averaging around 50%. The Netherlands goes to the polls to elect a new government next March and a number of measures are being taken to ensure that coronavirus does not have an impact. These include keeping some polling stations open for three days to spread voting and allowing some people to vote by mail.

Read more at DutchNews.nl:

Meanwhile both the SP and the FvD were in the headlines for all the wrong reasons: SP had to expel some members for conspiracy to commit violent revolution and the FvD expelled the whistle blowers(!) in their youth wing for sharing the anti-semitic comments on their whatsapp groups to the press.

[CumbrianLefty]

and the FvD expelled the whistle blowers(!) in their youth wing for sharing the anti-semitic comments on their whatsapp groups to the press.

B-bUt....AnTi-SeMiTiSm Is OnLy FoUnD oN tHe LeFt ThEsE dAyS!!??!!!11!!!!??!!

[Zinneke]

and the FvD expelled the whistle blowers(!) in their youth wing for sharing the anti-semitic comments on their whatsapp groups to the press.

B-bUt....AnTi-SeMiTiSm Is OnLy FoUnD oN tHe LeFt ThEsE dAyS!!??!!!11!!!!??!!

As a reminder they kicked out the anti-semites too...but yeah the optics aren't great. Their claim is probably centred around the idea that you shouldn't doxx people on what are supposed to be private chats where people should be allowed to have a "dark sense of humour"...at the same time I don't think youth wings need to be a necessary place for locker room talk, let alone jokes about Anne Frank on cocaine.

FvD will always find it difficult to reconcile the respectable RWPP more boomer voters that flocked to them during the hype because of Baudet's intellectual style with the younger ones that brought the party forward (along with almost certainly a bunch of Russian assets involved) that were there for the "dank memes" and have links to clear sighted neo-fascist movements in Europe. Whereas before the PVV vs FVD map was pretty straightforward (basically a similar map of GL vs SP and FVD winning more LPF areas than PVV did at their peak) this time round it will be interesting to see who stuck with FVD and who bailed for Wilders or Code Oranje (with some also going back to Rutte I imagine).

[H. Ross Peron]

Code Oranje sounds like a special edition Mountain Dew flavour produced only in the Netherlands.

[PSOL]

So apparently SP has been conducting Stalinist purges of any actual socialists in the party. lol, the left in the Netherlands is a joke.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I have often wondered why the Netherlands despite not having a threshold has no "true" far-left movement - Trotskyists, anarchists or what have you. Same for parties to the right of PVV - although there are no shortage of rivals for Wilders, they seem more driven by ego rather than an ideological clash - there aren't any classic NPD style nazis either.

[jeron]

I have often wondered why the Netherlands despite not having a threshold has no "true" far-left movement - Trotskyists, anarchists or what have you. Same for parties to the right of PVV - although there are no shortage of rivals for Wilders, they seem more driven by ego rather than an ideological clash - there aren't any classic NPD style nazis either.

Well, there used to be far-left parties until the 1980s (the communist party and the pacifist socialist party), but these porties merged into GroenLinks which was eventually dominated by left liberals. I suppose many of these people ended up voting SP when it got into parliament in 1994.

[jeron]

Meanwhile, Thierry Baudet stands down as FVD party leader as a result of the antisemitism and nazism crisis within the party. Many people within the party, including MP’s, asked Baudet to force the leader of the party’s youth wing and number 7 on its electoral list Freek Jansen to stand down. Apparently Baudet was not prepared to do so.

[freek]

and the FvD expelled the whistle blowers(!) in their youth wing for sharing the anti-semitic comments on their whatsapp groups to the press.

B-bUt....AnTi-SeMiTiSm Is OnLy FoUnD oN tHe LeFt ThEsE dAyS!!??!!!11!!!!??!!

As a reminder they kicked out the anti-semites too...but yeah the optics aren't great. Their claim is probably centred around the idea that you shouldn't doxx people on what are supposed to be private chats where people should be allowed to have a "dark sense of humour"...at the same time I don't think youth wings need to be a necessary place for locker room talk, let alone jokes about Anne Frank on cocaine.

And now Baudet has resigned as party leader because of this scandal.

Last weekend new screen shots from WhatsApp groups of the youth organization surfaced. Baudet announced a 'thorough investigation' (by some of his allies), hoping to kick the can down the road. Many of the other leading party members protested, and called for the complete termination of the youth organization instead.

[Zinneke]

Baudet has resigned as leader of the FvD and as lijstrekker too.

Here's an insight into the factional war ongoing :

https://twitter.com/SLdeLange/status/1330830292106547206

EDIT : jeron beat me to it

Regarding the far left, I think there's also a lot of grassroots organisations in industrial communities that vote SP out of resignation more than anything, but maintain their party structure at local level.

[Diouf]

Meanwhile, Thierry Baudet stands down as FVD party leader as a result of the antisemitism and nazism crisis within the party. Many people within the party, including MP’s, asked Baudet to force the leader of the party’s youth wing and number 7 on its electoral list Freek Jansen to stand down. Apparently Baudet was not prepared to do so.

How definite does it seem?
From what I can read in Telegraaf, he is resigning as the name on the top of the list (who represents the party in election TV and so on, I believe), but that he will remain as party leader and probably still run at the election, so he could be elected via preference votes.

[Zinneke]

Meanwhile, Thierry Baudet stands down as FVD party leader as a result of the antisemitism and nazism crisis within the party. Many people within the party, including MP’s, asked Baudet to force the leader of the party’s youth wing and number 7 on its electoral list Freek Jansen to stand down. Apparently Baudet was not prepared to do so.

How definite does it seem?
From what I can read in Telegraaf, he is resigning as the name on the top of the list (who represents the party in election TV and so on, I believe), but that he will remain as party leader and probably still run at the election, so he could be elected via preference votes.

He may present himself as a list pusher he said, which implies he doesn't actually want to be elected. Its unclear about the presidency too because NOS for example has the headline as no longer "lijstrekker en leider meer" but then put this at the end.

De 37-jarige Baudet is behalve Kamerlid ook partijvoorzitter van Forum voor Democratie. Volgens een woordvoerder is er binnen het partijbestuur afgesproken dat hij de functie blijft vervullen. Waarschijnlijk komen er binnenkort lijsttrekkersverkiezingen.

"will continue to fulfill the function [of president of the FvD]."

[freek]

Party president is in the Netherlands usually not a position held by the party leader. FVD was the exception. Typically it is some alderman.

Tonight, the rebel party members have a meeting. At least one of them wants Baudet to resign as chairman as well.

[freek]

The FVD sh**tshow is going on and on.

Today, Baudet resigned as party president.
Theo Hiddema, the other FVD MP unexpectedly resigned from parliament effective today. It is not yet clear who will take over the seat. Next in line is #3 from 2017, Susan Teunissen, who already left the party in 2018. She is a supporter of Henk Otten, the senator who left the party in 2019. Incidentally, Otten was #4 on the 2017 list.
Joost Eerdmans (#4 on the preliminary candidate list, former LPF MP and formerly alderman in Rotterdam) announced his candidacy for the party leadership. Others may follow.

[PSOL]

So to those angry at the purges as of late in the SP, where would those voters go?

[jeron]

So to those angry at the purges as of late in the SP, where would those voters go?

They have nowhere to go. The last time a communist party took part in the general election was in 1998. It got 0.07% of the vote....
One of the ousted SP members has been elected president of the party’s youth organisation, RED. The radicals have not given up yet.