Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: Rutte III era

[H. Ross Peron]

Is there a reason why SP did so badly even compared to the other left parties? Who did they lose most of their votes to?

[H. Ross Peron]

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

[H. Ross Peron]

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.

Yesterday evening senator Paul Cliteur (mentor of Thierry Baudet) resigned as well.

Today Baudet surprised everyone (even the rest of the party leadership) by reverting his resignation and announcing an online FVD leadership election on November 30 & December 1 (i.e. early next week), where he is a candidate.

The party leadership responded to Baudet by sending a locksmith to the party offices to change the keys.

So either Baudet is kicked out of the party later today, or his opponents leave the party. Either way, chaos is complete.

So who is in the party leadership of the FVD exactly?

[H. Ross Peron]

https://fd.nl/achtergrond/1375699/op-zoek-naar-het-electorale-gat-op-links-ljc1caRHSw3o

"the gap on the left" - an article appearing in the Financieele Dagblad about how a "Danish" style social democratic party that is hard on immigration could potentially do well given polling and revive their hopes somewhat. The obvious candidate would be SP, with them already on many cultural issues being quite traditionalist and Jan Marijnissen saying he didn't like the way the left in the west had chosen the culture wars as a battleground or the cancel culture. But daughter Lilian tried to make migration an issue going beyond social dumping and calling for a revision for work permits, and it caused too much friction internally. You know have a movement within PvdA called "Vrij Links" that wishes to stop the debate about culture wars and start talking about secular progressive values as a starting point and then focus on economics.

The Dutch left continues to slide in the polls. Yet the median voter might still probably consider itself progressive, and I think in 2012 you had a SP then PvdA surge to shoulder Rutte (ok, after the most right-wing government in Dutch history, granted) but eventually falling just short and collapsing after the mistake that was the Purple coalition. Weirdly I can only see Timmermans being able to get back to that level in the short term. He actually can target the places a PvdA campaign to unite the Left needs to target (his "home" Parkstad being the prime example), and he has a way of being able to talk to several constituencies without tripping up. But he probably sees himself as more effective in Brussels. Plus the other left-wing parties wouldn't want to work with him as easily as they did with Asscher and now Ploumen.

Sounds like what Jacques Monasch aimed for in his Nieuwe Wegen party. Such a party or faction should firmly reject austerity politics though and be more willing to ally with the CU or CDA than D66 .

[H. Ross Peron]

Something must be in the water down in Limburg when it comes to the PvdA.

Ploumen is from Limburg and Limburg has a local son/daughter effect like nowhere else (Wilders gets this too). Timmermans also had it in the EU election.

Also to consider - the other Lilian was not exactly in the good books of the SP members in Limburg given she shafted Ron Meijer. So Lilian --> Lillianne if you were an SP voter who doesn't like the leadership seems logical. SP also lost heavily in Boxmeer where Roemer was appreciated.

Especially in Southern Limburg the culture is quite different. People from there consider themselves distinct from the rest of the country. Generally, they regard the rest of the country as Holland and of course they themselves are not included in that. Little anecdote: A friend of mine who comes from Oss in Northern Brabant (a southern province) went to uni in Maastricht. People asked him if he was from the North, of course he replied no, i am from Oss. The Limburgish people answered: That is the north!
What always surprises me most out there is that people flatout refuse to talk Dutch even when you talk to them in Dutch, but cling to their own dialect instead, even in a city like Maastricht

Because I do some groundhopping, and Maastricht is a lovely city, I attended a South Limburg derby between Maastricht and Roda. Huge police presence, mock hangings, songs about WW2 collaboration, game stopped several times for crowd violence, Maastricht fans making a big deal of burning the Limburg flag, but still also finding the time to sing Hollanders Hollanders zet ze maar kapot, Hollanders Hollanders kogel in hun kop", presumably to the referee. Also they insist that Venlo should be part of Brabant, and that the only reason Limburgers aren't independent is because "we hate each other more".

You get the same provincial effect in Belgian Limburg. By far and away the ones who make the most noise about Flemish nationalism favouring Antwerp and Brussels rather than them, always voting for their own, etc.

Interestingly, Limburg also is distinctive in having a much lower birth rate compared to the rest of the Netherlands at least according to data from 2003. https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2003/36/largest-families-in-urk

[H. Ross Peron]

The SGP vote is almost exactly evenly divided between women and men, as one would expect in a community where people are voting on the basis of their religious convictions and not their sex.

Same reason for their fairly strong share of the youth vote along with the higher birth rates of the hardline Calvinists.

[H. Ross Peron]

Someone brought this up to me elsewhere but didn't provide details: do D66 want any further movement on euthanasia during this term?

Yes, from the notes with the explorer, its clear that D66 wants to continue with movement on euthanasia and do not wants to negotiate about it in the next government and wants to leave it as free subject for parliament to decide, knowing it will pass then. It will be one of the most difficult subjects if D66 and CU have to negotiate in the next government who is very against it

How do they wish to further expand euthanasia?

[H. Ross Peron]

Is the anti-Orban aspect of it why the socially conservative CU voted for the measure?

[H. Ross Peron]

I personally find D66's priorities to be strange, as D66 and CU are allies against VVD and CDA on most issues).

Which issues would those be? Seems like the only thing CU and D66 would have in common against VVD/CDA is legislation that would favour smaller parties.

[H. Ross Peron]

Good to see Dutch public opinion is pro-nuclear. I guess its the one unambiguous benefit of a liberal-led centre-right government.