2006 Dutch election

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Christian Democratic Appeal - Christian democrats, current ruling party
Labour - typical European center-left party, much like the German SPD or pre-Blair Labour
People's Party for Freedom and Democracy - liberal party, although not liberal at all in the American sense, most economically conservative party, in the government coalition
Socialists - more extreme left wing party
List Pim Fortuyn - supporters of Pim Fortuyn obviously. Remember that while anti-immigration he was also rather socially liberal and slightly right of center economically (which is why while I'd never vote for LPF I think it's rather unfair to lump him in with people like Le Pen and Haider, not only did he never show any Nazi sympathies but being a moderate libertarian on non-immigration issues is the polar opposite of those guys)
Green Left - You often can't tell what a Green party is like just by them being Green, just look at the massive difference between the American and Canadian Greens, but the name is Green Left so I'll assume they're left and probably like the German Greens
Democrats 66 - The party that withdrew their support from the coalition and caused the elections, they're a social liberal party which is much like the British Liberal Democrats, if you want to make a massive massive generalization you can just say left-libertarianism
Christian Union - A mostly socially conservative party, however they are a bit to the left on economics.
Reformed Political Party - nutjobs who in addition to taking all the main socially conservative positions want to ban television, women's suffrage, insurance, vaccinations and working on Sundays.

[minionofmidas]

Greens or Socialists, I never can decide. I used to like D66 as well, but they obviously lost much of my sympathy for propping up a rightwing government. (I think they actually did something similar once before, but I only read that later.)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

PvdA o/c

Labour - typical European center-left party, much like the German SPD or pre-Blair Labour

Pre-Blair Labour?

I'm not really sure what you mean by that; the only long-term change Blair made to Labour in terms of ideology or policies was the re-writing of Clause IV (which was purely symbolic as the Party never actually payed even the slightest bit of notice to Clause IV when we had been in Government in the past). The idea that he changed Labour in any meaningful way is a piece of propaganda spread around by both his supporters and certain elements on the left; both of which were happy to ignore the inconvenient fact that the sort of policies we were running on in the '80's were the abberation not The Way Things Had Always Been... there never was such a thing as "Old Labour" and the good/bad old days in which this mythical beast inhabited never existed either.

"New Labour" wasn't a lot more than carefully constructed media hype, a marketing ploy really (and one that was very successful in it's day)... even at it's height (we're talking late '90's here) the actual policies of the Government were exactly the sort of ones that you would expect from a Labour government (introduction of the minimum wage, some genuine attempts at constitutional change, the beginning of a massive expansion of the Welfare State, more rights for minorities...) most of which had very little to do with Blair (who has never really had as much influence over policies as everyone likes to think).
In fact the post-1997 Government has been the most re-distributive since Clem Attlee; it's just been done in a way that is so low-key that the only people that have noticed have been those who have benefited (an observation that the late Robin Cook made shortly after the 2005 Election).

The Labour Party is, and has always been, a very diverse thing, and it's policies and the way it views Government and what Government should be used for has always been changing; the classic example is the fact that until the First World War the Party was almost always opposed to using Whitehall as an instrument of policy.
All attempts to force all the different factions of the Party to share the same views have, ulitmately, failed, as have all attempts to remodel the Party around a passing ideological fad.

[Bono]

PvdA o/c

Labour - typical European center-left party, much like the German SPD or pre-Blair Labour

Pre-Blair Labour?

I'm not really sure what you mean by that; the only long-term change Blair made to Labour in terms of ideology or policies was the re-writing of Clause IV (which was purely symbolic as the Party never actually payed even the slightest bit of notice to Clause IV when we had been in Government in the past). The idea that he changed Labour in any meaningful way is a piece of propaganda spread around by both his supporters and certain elements on the left; both of which were happy to ignore the inconvenient fact that the sort of policies we were running on in the '80's were the abberation not The Way Things Had Always Been... there never was such a thing as "Old Labour" and the good/bad old days in which this mythical beast inhabited never existed either.

"New Labour" wasn't a lot more than carefully constructed media hype, a marketing ploy really (and one that was very successful in it's day)... even at it's height (we're talking late '90's here) the actual policies of the Government were exactly the sort of ones that you would expect from a Labour government (introduction of the minimum wage, some genuine attempts at constitutional change, the beginning of a massive expansion of the Welfare State, more rights for minorities...) most of which had very little to do with Blair (who has never really had as much influence over policies as everyone likes to think).
In fact the post-1997 Government has been the most re-distributive since Clem Attlee; it's just been done in a way that is so low-key that the only people that have noticed have been those who have benefited (an observation that the late Robin Cook made shortly after the 2005 Election).

The Labour Party is, and has always been, a very diverse thing, and it's policies and the way it views Government and what Government should be used for has always been changing; the classic example is the fact that until the First World War the Party was almost always opposed to using Whitehall as an instrument of policy.
All attempts to force all the different factions of the Party to share the same views have, ulitmately, failed, as have all attempts to remodel the Party around a passing ideological fad.

*applause*

[ag]

Probably D66.

[Democratic Hawk]

Labour (PvdA); although, the 'centrist' Christian Democratic Appeal would appeal to me too. The Christian Union would be too socially conservative for me, although it is economically acceptable

Dave

[Hatman 🍁]

If I were Dutch, I'd probably vote for List Pim Fortuyn, although I would never vote for a similar party in Canada.

[Jake]

LPF or CDA.

[Cubby]

I voted for my former self of course!

If I lived in Holland, I'd be more conservative since I would feel threatened by the thousands of Muslims who wish me harm.

[useful idiot]

LPF or CDA.

[Colin]

VVD almost certainly.

BRTD VVD is a liberal party. It's a right of centre liberal party much like the Free Democrats in Germany, the Flemish Liberals and Democrats in Belgium, Venestre in Denmark, and the Reform Party in Estonia. It's part of a large group of European market liberal parties that are usually considered to be liberal and belong to such groups as Liberal International and European Liberal Democrats and Reform party.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

VVD or CDA

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

VVD almost certainly.

BRTD VVD is a liberal party. It's a right of centre liberal party much like the Free Democrats in Germany, the Flemish Liberals and Democrats in Belgium, Venestre in Denmark, and the Reform Party in Estonia. It's part of a large group of European market liberal parties that are usually considered to be liberal and belong to such groups as Liberal International and European Liberal Democrats and Reform party.

oh, that's a typo. I meant not liberal at all in the AMERICAN sense. Time to fix it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

With these results the Parliament would be like this:

Christian Democratic Appeal - 46
Labour - 46
People's Party for Freedom and Democracy - 12
Socialists - 0
List Pim Fortuyn - 35
Green Left - 0
Democrats 66 - 12
Christian Union - 0
Reformed Political Party - 0

[freek]

Christian Democratic Appeal - Christian democrats, current ruling party
Labour - typical European center-left party, much like the German SPD or pre-Blair Labour

I'd say Blairite Labour. Not that much difference in policies.

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Yeah. Although the "Fundi" part of the German Greens (the hardcore environmentalists) hardly exists in the Dutch Greens. GreenLeft was formed in 1990 from 4 smaller leftist parties with green tendencies, one of them being the Communist Party (at that time more a feminist than a communist party though).  There already existed a green party in the Netherlands, "De Groenen" (The Greens). They never had much success because of the other small leftist parties, and where left out of the GreenLeft merger.

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Overall a nice characterization of the Dutch political parties Red, couldn't have done it better.

[freek]

The preliminary date for the early elections is Wednesday November 22.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Christian Democratic Appeal - Christian democrats, current ruling party
Labour - typical European center-left party, much like the German SPD or pre-Blair Labour

I'd say Blairite Labour. Not that much difference in policies.

Hmmmm, in that case I should change my support to the Socialists.

Democrats 66 - The party that withdrew their support from the coalition and caused the elections, they're a social liberal party which is much like the British Liberal Democrats, if you want to make a massive massive generalization you can just say left-libertarianism
Christian Union - A mostly socially conservative party, however they are a bit to the left on economics.
Reformed Political Party - nutjobs who in addition to taking all the main socially conservative positions want to ban television, women's suffrage, insurance, vaccinations and working on Sundays.

Overall a nice characterization of the Dutch political parties Red, couldn't have done it better.
[/quote]

Thanks, that's awesome since I was somewhat guessing on some of those. Even someone who follows international elections as much as me sometimes has a tough time pinning down the ideologies of European political parties.

Who are you voting for by the way?

If these results were the election (and my vote changed to the Socialists):
Christian Democratic Appeal - 47 seats
Labour - 28 seats
People's Party for Freedom and Democracy - 19 seats
Socialists - 19 seats
List Pim Fortuyn - 28 seats
Green Left - 0 seats
Democrats 66 - 9 seats
Christian Union- 0 seats
Reformed Political Party - 0 seats

What type of coalition would result from that?

[Colin]

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Probably CDA, VVD, LPF coalition much like Balkenende I.

[freek]

Who are you voting for by the way?

I am eligible to vote since 1998. Since then I usually voted VVD, but at the moment I am in doubt between VVD and CDA. Why? The VVD is divided at the moment in two wings, based on their stances on immigration etc. The differences between them:

One is the Verdonk. Tough on immigrants and the islam, and against state funded muslim schools (and because of that also against state funded christian schools). Usually a provocative style of politics.

The other one is the Rutte wing. Rutte is the new VVD leader. He is a more social liberal, pro state funded christian & muslim schools, and he thinks that Verdonk is a bit too tough on immigration.

I want to wait until it becomes more clear which of the two wings will "win". If it is Verdonk, I vote CDA, if it is Rutte I vote VVD.

Oh, I have been thinking about your characterization of the SGP:

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It gives a correct summary of their program (the SGP website is closed on Sundays ). However, the quality of SGP politicians is very high. They are absolutely not nutjobs. They are hardworking, give good speeches and are usually quite tolerant to other parties. They always stick by their principles, and they are well-respected for this. Because of this, the SGP takes part in quite some local governments, and with some success.

[freek]

Timeline until the upcoming election of November 22 (seems to be the official date now)

August 28: New parties need to have registered their name with the electoral council if they want to have their name on top of their candidate list.

October 10: Only on this day candidate lists can be submitted. Parties can choose if they want to take part in a limited number of districts, or in all 19 districts. For a list to be declared valid in a district, it needs 30 people in this district to support the list (so 570 people to take part on a national level). People can show their support for a list by placing an autograph on a form at city hall in their municipality of residence.

November 22: Elections. Polls are open from 0730am to 2100pm.

November 30: New Second Chamber gathers for the first time, new MPs are sworn in.

[Bono]

This election is anything but upcoming.

[Richard]

None of the above.

[freek]

From the other topic, The Dutch government has fallen

Latest polls:

30/06/2006  InterVIEW/NSS

Coalition:

CDA 24.4% - 38 seats (- 6 seats)
VVD 18.9% - 29 seats (+ 1 seat)
D66   3.1% -   4 seats  (- 2 seats)

Opposition:

PvdA 28.1% - 44 seats (+2)   ---  PvdA has been losing ground in the polls the last months. In March, after the local elections they had 60 seats in the polls. ----
SP     11.2% - 17 seats (+8)
LPF     0.5%  -  0  seats (-8)
GroenL 6.4% - 10 seats (+2)
ChristenU 3.5% - 5 seats (+2)
SGP    1.6% -   2 seats (+0)
PvdV  1.2%  -   1 seat (PvdV = Freedom Party from former VVD MP Geert Wilders)
Other Parties 1.3% - 0 seats (although the Animal's Party is close to 1 seat)

http://www.politiekebarometer.nl

On the website is an archive, they conduct a poll every week

[freek]

Latest polls:
21/07/2006  InterVIEW/NSS (Comparison with 30 June 2006)

Coalition:

CDA 25.5% - 39 seats (+ 1 seat)
VVD 19.0% - 29 seats (no change)
D66   1.5% -   2 seats  (- 2 seats)

Opposition:

PvdA 31.2% - 48 seats (+4)
SP     10.1% - 15 seats (-2)
LPF     0.4%  -  0  seats (no change)
GroenL 4.6% - 7 seats (-3)
ChristenU 4.5% - 7 seats (+2)
SGP    1.3% -   2 seats (+0)
PvdV  0.7%  -   1 seat (no change)
Other Parties 1.2% - 0 seats (although the Animal's Party is close to 1 seat)

http://www.politiekebarometer.nl

[freek]

Latest polls:
01/09/2006  InterVIEW/NSS (Comparison with 21 July 2006)

Coalition:

CDA 23.9% - 37 seats (- 2 seats)
VVD 21.1% - 32 seats (+ 3 seats)
D66   1.4% -   2 seats  (no change)

Opposition:

PvdA 30.3% - 47 seats (+1)
SP     9.2% - 14 seats (-1)
LPF     0.0%  -  0  seats (no change)
GroenL 5.4% - 8 seats (+1)
ChristenU 4.4% - 6 seats (-1)
SGP    1.5% -   2 seats (+0)
PvdV  1.6%  -   2 seats (+1)
Other Parties 1.2% - 0 seats (although the Animal's Party is close to 1 seat)

http://www.politiekebarometer.nl