🇳🇱 Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: General Election (Nov 22)

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Senate exit poll shows majority for government + GL/PvdA: 39 seats (24 without GL/PvdA).

Wouldn't the VOLT party's 2 seats also fit in well with Gov't + GL/PVDA?

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The Netherlands is not the only country in Europe that has a large agricultural sector and its also not the only country that is trying to meet climate change targets. Why is this BBB revolt by farmers such a uniquely Dutch phenomenon? Why do we not see similar parties popping up in Germany or Denmark or Belgium. I know those other countries have rightwing populist parties - but they tend to be focused on xenophobia and not fight against nitrogen reduction.

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The Netherlands is not the only country in Europe that has a large agricultural sector and its also not the only country that is trying to meet climate change targets. Why is this BBB revolt by farmers such a uniquely Dutch phenomenon? Why do we not see similar parties popping up in Germany or Denmark or Belgium. I know those other countries have rightwing populist parties - but they tend to be focused on xenophobia and not fight against nitrogen reduction.

I wouldn’t really consider this a climate change issue. The government is trying to limit nitrogen because of its pollution of the Dutch environment. This is worse than pretty much any other European country, and the courts ultimately forced them into acting or seeing significant restrictions imposed anyways. It probably helps that the Netherlands has a very low electoral threshold to get your foot in the door, and the breakdown of the traditional political system and associated voter loyalty means a new party can quickly breakthrough to ‘major’ party status. And to be fair other countries do see some parties fairly focused on farming/rural interests eg; the Center parties in most of Scandinavia or the Denmark Democrats in Denmark. The party that would traditionally represent many farmers/rural voters in the Netherlands, the CDA, is currently in government imposing unpopular policies on them so it helps spur these voters into looking elsewhere for something new and more radical.

I'm aware of the agrarian parties in Scandinavia such as the Centre parties in Sweden and Finland and Norway, but they are nothing like BBB. They are very middle of the road parties that have often been quite good on environmental issues.

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Doesnt the Netherlands have a pretty advanced welfare state much like Germany and the Scandinavian countries? How did they get that if the left has never won an election?

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Isn’t D66 kind of a “blue labour” social Democratic Party? My understanding is that party was first created by people on the right of PVDA in the 1960s

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Things are getting even more heated now in the PvdD.

People who love animals so much often seem to have serious issues when with dealing with human beings

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People who love animals so much often seem to have serious issues when with dealing with human beings

This is more the norm than the exception in Dutch politics though. From BIJ1 to FVD and from CDA to JA21 to DENK, they've all had big internal conflicts over the last few years.

I'm aware of that - I'm just amused at how a single issue party that is all about love of animals could be torn apart with vicious fratricidal conflict. The Green party in Canada imploded two years ago and someone wrote "Greens love animals, forests, lakes and trees - they just don't seem to like people very much"

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Is NSC basically a reincarnation of the CDA - which looks to be roadkill after this election? The NSC list looks to be mostly ex-CDA people 

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I find it fascinating how the presence of such a low threshold to win any seats in the Netherlands keeps leading to the proliferation of these teeny-weeny parties that have only the most microscopic differences from other parties. I mean seriously - why do you need a Party for the Animals AND a Green party? Why have D66 and Volt and PvdA etc... in any other country these parties would be factions within larger parties.

Not saying its necessarily good or bad - it just "is"

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Its interesting that people would consider the VVD to be "holding up well" compared to the Tories in the UK when most polls show them getting 27 or 28 seats out of 150 - meaning about 18% of the national popular vote.

Imagine if the UK Tories got 18% of the national popular vote - that would be considered an extinction event! Now of course it goes without saying that the UK and the Netherlands have radically different electoral systems and in Dutch politics there are huge incentives to vote for smaller parties that simply do not exist in the UK 

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Remarkable that the CDA was once the "natural governing party" of the Netherlands. Now they are down to THREE PERCENT of the national popular vote.

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Boy it sure looks like BBB has turned out to be just a flash in the pan. If they end up with just a paltry 4 or 5 seats, do they even survive as a party?

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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?

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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.

There is Melenchon in France and Wagenknecht in Germany...but as has been noted almost everything Bernie Sanders supports could be in the platform of a centre right Christian Democrat party in Europe. He is only radical by US standards

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Why does it take them so long to count votes in the Netherlands? In Germany the votes would almost all be counted within an or two of the polls closing

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Why does the Volt party exist at all? Why are they not part of either D66 or GL/PvdA?

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If I were the PVDA-GL, I'd shut down any ideas of being in a broad government and instead do some real deep autopsy of what the hell went wrong. Going into government seems like a surefire way to collapse even more for them at this point. The people voted for PVV, and they'll have to deal with that. Now they need to find out *why*.

Not sure how you draw that conclusion - GL/PVDA got about what polls projected and about as much as they could have expected. PVV did better because VVD and other rightwing parties did a lot worse. It seems to me that if you can grab the PM chair it makes a huge difference. In the past the PvdA was a huge loser after an election where they had almost as many seats as VVD but because VVD was bigger they got the PM and that meant PvdA suffered the usual fate of any party perceived as a "junior" coalition partner. There is no substitute for being in power.

I really not get the logic that some people spout that boils down to "its bad to win power because you may make unpopular decisions and then lose power in a subsequent election". If you are not willing to take the risk of being in government then what are you doing running in elections at all? 

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GL/PVDA have the most to gain from a grand coalition *if* they lead it. Cos they get to be in power and therefore to do things, but it’d draw support from VVD to PVV & away from NSC (probably all over the spectrum) so I’m not sure why the right/centre would agree.

I guess that depends on whether you think PVV has reached its ceiling or not. 37 seats is close to getting the votes of everyone who would ever even consider voting for them

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According to that demographic analysis it looks like the Netherlands is one of the very few countries in the industrialized world where women voted more for the right than did men. Any explanation for that?

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Hopefully PM Timmermans is at least being considered. The Netherlands would have to pay a huge price to uphold a dumb convention that the first placed party gets to govern.

The first place party only gets the first "crack" at trying to form a coalition - they don't always succeed. There was an election back in the 70s when the PvdA was the largest party - but then the CDA and VVD formed a coalition without them them and they were stuck in oppoition.

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Why does Volt even exist as a separate party? Its sounds pretty indistinguishable from D66 or GL/PvdA