Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: Rutte III era

[Former President tack50]

It's getting increasingly challenging with the level of fragmentation we're currently experiencing, and there seems to be no quick fix or potential solution with the system that we have (which is unlikely to change). We'll have to deal with it. I guess we'll have a two-horse race election once in a while, which makes coalition formation easier, but elections like in 2010 and 2017 with that level of fragmentation will likely only become more prevalent in the future. It is what it is.

FVD are a new populist right-wing party focusing on direct democracy, opposition to mass immigration, opposition to the EU, maintaining Dutch traditions and values, and lowering taxes for small and mid-sized businesses. They mainly attract voters from PVV, CDA and VVD.

I now wonder how a Dutch election would look like if they switched to FPTP cold turkey and without any party consolidation or coalitions.

Looking at the 2017 map I imagine an overall VVD majority (with less than 22% of the vote!) with CDA in second and a handful of PVV people in the south and GL in Amsterdam. Eventually a VVD-CDA 2 party system?

[bigic]

Or maybe there would be last-minute tactical voting.

[Zinneke]

It's getting increasingly challenging with the level of fragmentation we're currently experiencing, and there seems to be no quick fix or potential solution with the system that we have (which is unlikely to change). We'll have to deal with it. I guess we'll have a two-horse race election once in a while, which makes coalition formation easier, but elections like in 2010 and 2017 with that level of fragmentation will likely only become more prevalent in the future. It is what it is.

FVD are a new populist right-wing party focusing on direct democracy, opposition to mass immigration, opposition to the EU, maintaining Dutch traditions and values, and lowering taxes for small and mid-sized businesses. They mainly attract voters from PVV, CDA and VVD.

I now wonder how a Dutch election would look like if they switched to FPTP cold turkey and without any party consolidation or coalitions.

Looking at the 2017 map I imagine an overall VVD majority (with less than 22% of the vote!) with CDA in second and a handful of PVV people in the south and GL in Amsterdam. Eventually a VVD-CDA 2 party system?

No it would be similar to 2012 where this happened...

Or maybe there would be last-minute tactical voting.

which is exactly why they will not allow it.

Regarding the whole debate about a fractured country, I am no fan of Baudet but he is on to something when he talks about a party cartel...I think as much as we'd like to picture a bunch of squabbling party and sectioned off electorates, at the high level of politics a lot of the people in the "Kunduz club" of parties get along more than well, and even people like Wilders are hardly disliked/exiled amongst the political community. There's a culture of constructive opposition in the Netherlands and it doesn't have such a heavy hard foreign policy to need stable governments (although the 2000s showed foreign policy is still difficult in this kind of system). 

Amongst the population I am not on the ground there anymore so I don't know what its like, but I would say that from living there don't think its comparable to the US or even here in Belgium (a much more comparable example). Class and geographic faultlines are much stronger here than in the NL I feel. Even problematic immigrants seem far more integrated there than here. 

[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.

[DavidB.]

Former (Belgian) LDD MEP and well-known Dutch conservative Derk Jan Eppink will lead FVD in the European election. He used to be a VVD member but was basically always much more right-wing than them once Bolkestein had faded out of the picture. A member of Bolkestein's cabinet when the latter was a European Commissioner, Eppink is one of the few Dutch public figures who would identify as conservative while not being (overly) Christian or Christian democratic. Again a safe choice. This means FVD will probably attempt to enter ECR rather than a more strongly euroskeptic parliamentary group. In a Telegraaf interview, Eppink explicitly criticizes ENF and says constructive coalitions need to be built against more Eurofederalism. He claims to be "inspired by the generation of Baudet and Kurz" and says he wants to do his part.

[DavidB.]

FVD also published their entire list for the Senate and EP elections. No surprises there: Baudet has clearly gone for the incrowd that he trusts.

The Senate list is, as previously mentioned, led by Henk Otten. Leiden University Professor of Law Paul Cliteur is at #2, followed by FVD Amsterdam leader Annabel Nanninga, former FVD board member Paul Frentrop, FVD press secretary Jeroen de Vries, FVD board member Rob Rooken, risk and compliance manager Dorien Rookmaker, Lennart van der Linden, the leader of local party EVB in the Rotterdam suburb of Barendrecht which received 49% of the vote in the local elections, and chess grandmaster Loek van Wely.

The EP list is led by Derk Jan Eppink, followed by board members Rob Roos and Rob Rooken (the latter is likely to be elected to the Senate and would probably not take up his seat in the EP if FVD win 3), Dorien Rookmaker (could also be elected to the Senate), political scientist and DPRK expert Michiel Hoogeveen (seems influenced by Ron Paul's ideas), and the leader of the FVD youth organization, Frederik Jansen. FVD is likely to win 2-3 seats, so apart from Eppink and Roos, Hoogeveen could be elected to the EP.

It is clear that Baudet (and Otten) did not want to gamble and have potential rebels or troublemakers on the list: this went wrong following the General Election, when a whole number of candidates renounced their ties with FVD as the internal democratic character of the party remained low.

[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.

[DavidB.]

An increasing amount of discussion on the Marrakesh UN Pact in the Netherlands. I suppose the government is still more likely than not to sign it, but pressure on the government has increased. VVD and CDA long blocked a debate on the subject (FVD and PVV are vehemently and vocally opposed, SGP also oppose it), but now there has been some debate on it and VVD immigration spokesman Malik Azmani said he would be opposed to the pact if it turned out to have any real legal consequences. While Immigration Minister Harbers (VVD) still intends to sign it, there is talk about an additional "white paper" which would clarify the non-legal status of the agreement: understandably it is feared that judges will turn the document into something with legal power. Former VVD leader and European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein called on the government not to sign the agreement.

-
Today, 725,000 people were eligible to vote in local elections in municipalities that will merge from January 1, 2019 onwards - the biggest of which are Groningen (nearly 200k eligible voters) and Haarlemmermeer (approximately 150k eligible voters). Turnout will be lower than in ordinary local elections as the elections received very little media attention, which should be good for the Christian parties, especially in the rural municipalities. Results will be coming in soon.

Notable that Leerdam and Zederik used to be in the province of Zuid-Holland and will now be part of Utrecht in the new municipality of Vijfheerenlanden together with Vianen (which was a great bellweather, so this kind of sucks from an electoral standpoint as well). So long, and thanks for all the cheese, I guess?

[DavidB.]

Results in Groningen with about 60% in: enormous loss for D66 and a big victory for GL compared to 2014. Relatively stable picture otherwise.

[DavidB.]

Result in Groningen:


Also a stable picture in Haarlemmermeer, where VVD and local party HAP top the poll with 7 seats. D66 had 6 seats but lose 3. PvdA lose 1, GL only gain 1. Populist forces remain stable and do relatively well in this mostly lower middle-class suburban municipality: FORZA win 4 seats (down 1 from 2014) and Social Right Haarlemmermeer keep their seat.

[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.

[DavidB.]

So people found out that the climate agreement would be pretty expensive and a Peil poll showed that only 20% support the full implementation of all measures in it, with 58% thinking at least parts should not be in it. There is also important criticism from the left, with environmentalist organizations not supporting the final product because households would carry too much of the costs as opposed to businesses. The only party with a majority (and a big one: 63/30) of current voters supporting the agreement is D66.

Meanwhile, the campaign season for the Provincial (and therefore Senate) elections is getting started. This means the VVD will make a lot of right-wing statements, particularly now that they are under heavy FVD scrutiny over the climate agreement, which was supported by the VVD. VVD parliamentary group leader Klaas Dijkhoff now said he definitely does not view the climate agreement as completely binding and he thinks some proposals should not be implemented, calling D66 group leader Jetten a "climate nagger". This unsurprisingly drew heavy criticism from the left.

Mark Rutte said he would have liked to "beat up" youth who behaved aggressively towards first responders on New Year's Eve and he criticized "white wine sipping Amsterdam elites" criticizing Donald Trump, with the reasoning that some of his criticisms of international organizations have some merit. Struck the right VVD campaign tone there, without any concrete policy proposals at all: Rutte at his best (or worst?).

Another storm in a teacup: a large number of prominent Orthodox Protestant (Dutch Reformed) church leaders made a Dutch version of the Nashville declaration opposing homosexuality and transgenderism. SGP leader Kees van der Staaij signed on too, causing a lot of outrage: Bible Belt Christians are highly insular, so people tend to forget they exist; and Van der Staaij tends to avoid controversial subjects outside his own circles. Bizarrely, the public prosecutor is now actually investigating whether the declaration violates hate speech laws, showing how real the threat to freedom of religion is in a post-religious society. None of this will of course affect electoral politics. CU leader Gert-Jan Segers rejected the declaration, saying everyone is welcome in the church and the conversation on homosexuality and Christianity isn't served with it.

Peil had VVD 22 (-11 compared to GE17), PVV 18 (-2), GL 17 (+3), FVD 16 (+14), PvdA 15 (+6), SP 12 (-2), CDA 11 (-8), D66 10 (-9), PvdD 8 (+3), DENK 7 (+4), CU 7 (+2), 50Plus 4 (nc) and SGP 3 (nc) on Sunday; they're now structurally overpolling FVD, PvdA and DENK (and probably GL) and underpolling VVD, CDA and D66.

Edit: wow, mvd10 and I decided simulatenously to make another post. Oh well

[PSOL]

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?

[DavidB.]

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?

Ipsos, the most reliable pollster, has the PvdA at 9 seats in its last poll, which is the same as their GE result - and so does Kantar. Peil is out of line with the other polls here and I'm not convinced the PvdA are recovering significantly at all. As they have been out of government for longer you do notice that left-wing voters are starting to think more mildly of the party (or they have more pity with them), but I would not say the reputation has been fixed at all.

Research showed that the PvdA's loss in 2017 was mostly due to other parties (GL, D66) having stronger "pull factors" rather than these voters being only "pushed away" by the PvdA and its behavior in government. But that situation hasn't changed. The PvdA still has a big problem with its profile.

[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.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Some time ago I had chance to read a text about youth organisation of SGP and that generally there are relatively a lot of young people around that party, even compared to other youth organisation one of SGP is pretty big. Are there are any differences between youth and regular members of the party in terms of political views etc.?

[DavidB.]

Some time ago I had chance to read a text about youth organisation of SGP and that generally there are relatively a lot of young people around that party, even compared to other youth organisation one of SGP is pretty big. Are there are any differences between youth and regular members of the party in terms of political views etc.?

The youth organization is the biggest of all political youth organizations in the Netherlands, but they do not have much influence in the party - more than in most other parties, seniority matters in the SGP. Regarding political issues, the youth are generally more progressive on the issue of women in politics and in the party, but otherwise there isn't much of a difference in outlook. Which in itself is remarkable, I think, given the current zeitgeist. Still, subtle differences that I'm currently unaware of may exist and manifest themselves in the future. But nothing big.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Some time ago I had chance to read a text about youth organisation of SGP and that generally there are relatively a lot of young people around that party, even compared to other youth organisation one of SGP is pretty big. Are there are any differences between youth and regular members of the party in terms of political views etc.?

The youth organization is the biggest of all political youth organizations in the Netherlands, but they do not have much influence in the party - more than in most other parties, seniority matters in the SGP. Regarding political issues, the youth are generally more progressive on the issue of women in politics and in the party, but otherwise there isn't much of a difference in outlook. Which in itself is remarkable, I think, given the current zeitgeist. Still, suble differences that I'm currently unaware of may exist and manifest themselves in the future. But nothing big.

Thanks.

[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...).

[DC Al Fine]

Thanks for the political history mvd. I learned a lot.

[Former President tack50]

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)

[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

Scroll down for 2015-2019 provincial control.

[DavidB.]

The election is all about the Senate. I don't even know what the provincial coalition is around here (but they're all oversized/grand coalitions consisting of a subset of the establishment parties), let alone what they achieved or what the party I voted for last time (SGP) achieved. And if I don't know it, your average voter sure as hell doesn't.

[DC Al Fine]

The election is all about the Senate. I don't even know what the provincial coalition is around here (but they're all oversized/grand coalitions consisting of a subset of the establishment parties), let alone what they achieved or what the party I voted for last time (SGP) achieved. And if I don't know it, your average voter sure as hell doesn't.

I just went on wiki to look up the Dutch Senate election and found out there's an SP politician named Tiny Kox