🇳🇱 Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: General Election (Nov 22) (user search)
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Author Topic: 🇳🇱 Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: General Election (Nov 22)  (Read 60527 times)
oldtimer
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« on: March 17, 2023, 03:19:38 PM »

Some recent developments:

- PM Rutte said they government will listen to the "scream" of the voters (not sure this is a good or respectful way to frame it...) and will think of the consequences in terms of policy. Behind the scenes, the Ministry for Agriculture is already preparing a proposal to pacify BBB. Scrapping the proposed tightening of the nitrogen reduction deadline from 2035 to 2030 is a prominent feature in this regard. VVD, CDA and CU would be ready to drop the tightening of this target. Van der Plas also demands no forced buyouts and an increase of the nitrogen emissions cap in the law. The latter demand would probably be subject to new lawsuits.

- On election night, Nitrogen Minister Christianne van der Wal (VVD) gave a bit of a tactless interview in which she says nitrogen policy has to continue as planned because there is no choice. She said it was already known many people were opposed to the policy, but if we want our economy to stay open and housing construction to continue we have to do this. In De Telegraaf, an anonymous CDA MP remarked that they thought: "Shut the f**k up" when Van der Wal said all of this. Green and left commentators, on the other hand, lauded Van der Wal's comments.

- BBB asked MP Chris Stoffer (SGP) to investigate possible avenues for coalition formation in the province of Friesland. The SGP itself did not win any seats in Friesland. The local PvdA leader said it is positive he has experience and she wouldn't object to it.

And some thoughts about provincial coalition building:

- BBB's victory will make provincial coalition formation a nightmare. This is not like 2019, where FVD's victory was impressive/shocking (depending on political POV) and surprising but the magnitude was fairly limited. Now, the numbers game is fundamentally different. In many provinces, sidelining BBB, FVD, PVV and JA21 requires absurd coalitions to be formed, consisting of basically all other parties. This won't be feasible.

Take Flevoland, where BBB got 20.8% of the vote and 10 out of 41 seats - close to its national average and by no means the most pro-BBB province. Not that crazy. But BBB, PVV, FVD and JA21 already have 17 seats combined. VVD, CDA, D66, CU, GL and PvdA have only 16 combined. Even adding the SP and the PvdD (quite a lot of an ideological stretch...) only takes you to 20, 1 short of a majority. Where to go next? 50Plus and a local party both have one. But it's difficult to see how this would work - and how voters wouldn't punish this behavior. In many provinces, the picture is similar or even more favorable to BBB. I expect establishment parties to form anti-BBB coalitions in some provinces (Utrecht, Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland are the most obvious options - in that order), but in most provinces this simply won't be an option - BBB will be "incontournable", as the French say, mostly because excluding BBB means excluding PVV/FVD/(almost definitely) JA21 too.

Playing with the coalition builder in every province and looking at the different provincial results is possible here.

For years I have observed Rutte push voters from one Pro-Rutte party to another Pro-Rutte party, so I expected that Rutte would stay until he ran out of pro-Rutte parties to push disappointed voters into.

So it's poetic justice that he runs out of centrist parties to eat.
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oldtimer
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« Reply #1 on: July 10, 2023, 07:49:56 AM »

I'm surprised Rutte resigned.
Usually those who remain in power for decades try to stick around for as long as possible.

Although he might have seen that there was no possibility of him winning 1st place this time, 13 years might have been the "as long as possible".

As a political obituary:

He governed like Merkel and fell like Merkel, he ate all his coalition partners until there where none, being the master conspirator and backstabber until no one trusted him.

The last straw being a controversial strongly held personal opinion that led to a personal collapse of support, just like Merkel or Thatcher.

Record:

The Dutch economy grew as same as the Belgian one which mostly had no government, so he had no economic impact, maybe smaller gdp per capita.

Abolished referendums because he was constantly unpopular and he lost them all, instead of trying to be popular for a change.
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oldtimer
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« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2023, 10:33:16 PM »

He governed like Merkel and fell like Merkel
Merkel chose her own moment, though. Rutte didn't.

Does Rutte resigning help (voters tired of him return to VVD) or hurt (lack of an experienced leader causes voters to look for other options) VVD's chances in the election?

I suppose it depends who replaces him. Any word on who that might be (he's literally the only name I know from the party)?
It will most probably hurt the VVD, which had turned into the Rutte machine. The most obvious candidate to replace him seems Dilan Yesilgöz, Minister of Justice & Security. Another option would be former parliamentary group leader Klaas Dijkhoff, who had quit politics in 2021 but still has his share of admirers and who is more on the left of the party; and Edith Schippers, former Healthcare Minister who is more right-wing on immigration than Rutte but more socially liberal, but who screwed up the Senate campaign earlier this year.

Less likely candidates are Sophie Hermans, current parliamentary group leader, but unpopular and seen as incompetent with the public; Vincent Karremans, leader of the VVD in Rotterdam; and Christianne van der Wal, former party chairwoman, current Minister for Nature and Nitrogen, deeply unpopular with farmers but admired by social liberals and more green elements within the party.

Edit: After the collapse of the coalition but before Rutte's announcement today, 1Vandaag did a poll among GE21 VVD voters about which potential candidates they consider "acceptable" as leading candidate in the next election. Karremans, Becker and Aartsen have low name recognition. Hermans and Van der Wal have high name recognition but still a very low acceptability rate. Opinions on Schippers are mixed. Dijkhoff and Yesilgöz would be frontrunners, based on this.

I suspect that if Merkel thought that she had a chance of staying after the 2021 election she would not have retired.

That's why I consider the circumstances similar, they both ran out of road and stepped down before a possible defeat.
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oldtimer
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« Reply #3 on: July 21, 2023, 07:46:31 PM »

Netherlands has an image as a fairly progressive party yet it seems pretty much every election, more vote for parties on the right than left so why is that?  UK, Australia, and US generally perceived as more conservative yet plenty of times where more vote for parties on left than right in those three.  True Democrats might have some who would be on left in Netherlands, but Labor Australia and UK Labour would definitely be on left even in Netherlands while Liberal Democrats in UK are sort of akin to D66 so borderline.

Netherlands; Luxembourg; Switzerland and Germany (the latter after those first three) are the most capitalist countries I can think of in Europe. Naturally, Cultural progressivism is different than economic leftism and those things don’t correlate the way people act like they do.

The Scandinavian/Nordic countries come exactly after them - Finland; Sweden; Norway; Denmark - but not as much as those first four I mentioned as there’s a better balance imo. But to my perspective they’re still quite capitalist too, though less orthodox than Netherlands.

While Southern Europe (France; Spain; Greece) tends to be much less of capitalists in comparison, which is why you see a much stronger left-wing electoral tradition during elections in general regarding the competitive parties.

The cultural difference I think is due to environmental conditions which contained the Roman Empire to it's borders and no further.

Also those borders are mostly the religious borders between Protestants and non-Protestants, in western europe.

Basically the weather over the long run can make you behave differently (see Florida Man, Left Coast).
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oldtimer
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« Reply #4 on: November 22, 2023, 03:40:45 PM »

Party: I&O - Ipsos - Peil

PVV: 28 - 27 - 29
GL-PvdA: 27 - 24 - 28
VVD: 27 - 29 - 26
NSC: 21 - 19 - 19
D66: 9 - 11 - 8
BBB: 5 - 6 - 6
SP: 6 - 5 - 5
PvdD: 5 - 5 - 4
CDA: 4 - 4 - 6
FVD: 4 - 3 - 4
DENK: 3 - 4 - 4
CU: 3 - 4 - 3
Volt: 3 - 4 - 3
SGP: 3 - 3 - 2
JA21: 1 - 1 - 1
BIJ1: 0 - 1 - 1
BVNL:  1 - 0  - 1
50Plus: 0 - 0 - 0

All very close to each other, except for Ipsos on GL/PvdA; they have D66 higher.
Compared to the final polls it is clear that the right tactically voted for PVV while the left did not do the same for GL-PvdA. The balance between the right and left "blocs" did not shift much.

Or alternatively that the "tacitcal voting for the left" maybe had already taken place as much as it could up to this point? I don't really know

I know quite a few people for who don't like Timmermans and who might have voted PVDA-GL with a different leader. Timmermans is not well liked, many people think he is arrogant

The impact of Timmermans as an unpopular PM of a multiparty centrist coalition of losers will simply fuel the extremes even more.

I guess Wilders is set on the LePen path.
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oldtimer
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« Reply #5 on: November 22, 2023, 03:50:41 PM »

Wilders' victory speech was interesting.
He used the word 'tsunami' to describe the results.
Fair enough.

It's not really a tsunami but he can celebrate.

Wilders has been teased with winning elections since 2010, always leading at some point in opinion polls but always coming short on election day.

If the exit poll is correct all parties to the right of the VVD get exactly 75 seats.


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oldtimer
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« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2023, 04:50:21 PM »

If I was Omtizgt I would probably feel that I would be the biggest loser from a snap election, right? Like, getting more seats than this might be hard, and there's more downside, likely...

He has 3 options:

1. Do nothing, go for new elections = Gets vaporised by the PVV.
2. Gets in bed with the PVV = Could become PM, but would need some form of VVD support.
3. Gets in bed with GL-PvdA = Gets vaporised by the PVV.
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oldtimer
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« Reply #7 on: November 22, 2023, 05:03:43 PM »

Why is right wing populists doing so well throughout Europe as already in power in Italy, leading in Austria, around 20% in Finland, Sweden, and Germany, rising in Spain & Portugal.  UK & Ireland seem only two where weak although in UK I am guessing disaster of Brexit probably big reason.  My understanding is elsewhere, right wing populists don't call for leaving EU so can at least avoid that risk.

It's mostly figures and parties that have stayed around for quite some time, so voters are more familiar with them.

Farage could be doing equally good at the moment if he stayed around leading a party, his absence in Britain is probably the only reason Reform gets 8% rather than 18%.

Also a lot of voters in Western Europe who remember WW2 and are most resistant to right wing change are dying of old age, in Eastern Europe it's the reverse as the fear of Communists fades.
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oldtimer
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« Reply #8 on: November 22, 2023, 05:08:27 PM »

I get that PVV plays the xenophobia card and make rightwing populist promises about stopping asylum seekers etc... but what do they offer when it comes to inflation? Do they promise to wave a magic wand and make prices drop?

That is my question but seems in many countries with things bad, people for whatever reason like to go after those weaker than them not stronger thus why right wing populists succeeding and left failing.  A lot of it is emotional not well thought out.

If you don't throw money to voters you are just left with a social agenda.
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oldtimer
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« Reply #9 on: November 22, 2023, 05:47:20 PM »

I get that PVV plays the xenophobia card and make rightwing populist promises about stopping asylum seekers etc... but what do they offer when it comes to inflation? Do they promise to wave a magic wand and make prices drop?

That is my question but seems in many countries with things bad, people for whatever reason like to go after those weaker than them not stronger thus why right wing populists succeeding and left failing.  A lot of it is emotional not well thought out.

If you don't throw money to voters you are just left with a social agenda.

So then how come we aren't seeing Bernie Sanders type parties going anywhere in Europe?  While that is not my type of politics, at least that style of populism I understand more than right wing type.

The Eurozone doesn't have any money, it went bust years ago.

Now Britain could print some money to shower voters, but not as much as America, and it depends on Starmer and his Chancellor.
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oldtimer
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« Reply #10 on: December 04, 2023, 01:53:38 PM »

First poll after election



No change between Left-Right blocks, just Wilders consolidating the Right as expected.
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oldtimer
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« Reply #11 on: December 19, 2023, 02:23:11 PM »

Today's Ipsos poll has the PVV at 47 seats, an all-time high for Wilders.



It's getting to a point where Wilders might decide for a new election, or force the others to give concessions to avoid one.

On the new numbers he can drop one of VVD, NSC, BBB from his coalition.
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oldtimer
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« Reply #12 on: February 02, 2024, 04:08:56 PM »

Tensions about the government formation have only grown this week, also on agriculture, where NSC and BBB have different views. The result: NSC have big doubts about the government formation. "The only possibility would be an expert government - with a distance to party politics from here to the moon", an NSC source told NOS.

On Monday February 12, informateur Plasterk is supposed to publish his final report. That same week, the Lower House will debate this report.

A new election on the same date as the Euro election could be possible.
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oldtimer
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« Reply #13 on: February 02, 2024, 04:46:35 PM »

De Volkskrant published a longer analysis, going a little deeper into the differences. On public finances, VVD and NSC want budget cuts while BBB and PVV don't want austerity and know the parliament is on their side - they can form case-by-case majorities with the left here. On asylum immigration, VVD and PVV want to make an agreement not to force municipalities to take in asylum seekers even though this was just adopted as a law, but NSC - who opposed this law - say it should either be retracted (impossible given the Senate's position) or abided by, anything else would be against the rule of law. On labour immigration, VVD and BBB are reluctant to support restrictions while NSC and PVV do want heavy restrictions. On foreign policy, VVD and NSC absolutely want to continue supporting Ukraine financially, while the PVV oppose this; BBB want to explore whether it is possible to send Ukrainian refugees in the Netherlands back to supposed "safe parts of Ukraine". Climate and agriculture weren't even mentioned by De Volkskrant but everyone can imagine the differences there.

None of these positions are truly surprising - the only surprising part is that the parties haven't been able to make some of the compromises that would seem quite obvious (Plasterk would agree: he alluded to this idea in his Telegraaf column right after the election). Perhaps this can partly be attributed to the low amount of trust the negotiators seem to have in each other - at least this is mentioned in a lot of articles.

I mean this is exactly what Omtzigt has openly desired since launching his campaign (at minimum): a weak executive subservient to parliament. So them pushing the envelope and forcing the others to agree to their vision in exchange for their votes isn't exactly surprising.
Indeed.

A new election on the same date as the Euro election could be possible.
But it looks like a new election wouldn't yield a meaningfully different result, except that the PVV would be strengthened and the VVD weakened. This would only benefit Wilders, so difficult to see why NSC and VVD would want to go down this road.

That's the point of new elections (or threatening with them) for Wilders if the smaller parties continue to block things, to put the squeeze on them.

And the longer the delay the more probable it becomes, as people get fed up.
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oldtimer
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« Reply #14 on: February 10, 2024, 09:27:26 AM »



He's going for an election alright.
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