Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Dutch Election 2017

Parliamentary elections were held in the Netherlands on March 15. Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s liberal VVD placed first with 33 out of 150 seats. The social democratic Labor Party suffered an historic defeat, going down from 38 to nine seats.

  • Dilemma for Dutch Social Democrats After Historic Defeat

    Open Europe’s Vincenzo Scarpetta‏ has called it the PASOK-ization of the Dutch Labor Party. In an historic defeat on Wednesday, the social democrats went down from 25 to 6 percent support, reducing them from the second to the seventh largest party in parliament.

    The Greens and far-left Socialists, long Labor’s smaller siblings on the left, did better, winning 9 percent support each.

    The result was not unexpected. Labor’s popularity fell when it formed a coalition government with the right in 2012 and never recovered.

    The choice it now faces is the same for social democrats elsewhere: either attempt to lure back traditional working-class and migrant voters with an economically more populist program or double down on center-left politics that appeal to the socially progressive middle class. (more…)

  • Election Reveals Educational Divide in Netherlands

    Amsterdam Netherlands
    Aerial view of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, October 9, 2008 (Sebastiaan ter Burg)

    Liberal Democrat and Green party voters in the Netherlands are more educated than supporters of the nationalist Freedom Party and far-left Socialists.

    An Ipsos exit poll found that 58 and 55 percent of liberal Democrats and Greens, respectively, have graduated from college. Only 15 and 18 percent of Freedom and Socialist Party voters have.

    The findings, while not surprising, underline that these four parties represent extremes in the Netherlands’ . (more…)

  • What Happens Next in the Netherlands?

    The Hague Netherlands
    Dutch government offices and parliament buildings in The Hague (iStock/Fotolupa)

    As expected, no single party won a majority of the votes in the Netherlands on Wednesday. Parties must now form a coalition in parliament in order to govern. (more…)

  • Center-Right Parties Expected to Form Government in Netherlands

    The Hague Netherlands
    Dutch government buildings in The Hague, January 22, 2015 (Unsplash/Daria Nepriakhina)

    Center-right parties are expected to dominate the next coalition government in the Netherlands.

    If the exit poll released on Wednesday night turns out to be correct, the ruling liberal party of Mark Rutte would come close to finding a majority in the next parliament with the likeminded liberal Democrats and Christian Democrats.

    The three are projected to win 69 seats. 76 are needed for a majority. (more…)

  • Dutch Mainstream Defeats Populist Geert Wilders

    • Prime Minister Mark Rutte won parliamentary elections in the Netherlands on Wednesday. Preliminary results put his liberal VVD in the lead to form the next government.
    • The Christian Democrats (CDA), left-liberal D66 and nationalist Freedom Party (PVV) would share second place.
    • The Greens have overtaken Labor as the largest party on the left.
    • Given that all major parties have ruled out a pact with the Freedom Party, a coalition of four or five parties is likely to be formed in the center.
    • Turnout was 80 percent, the highest in three decades. (more…)

  • Optimist Rutte Asks Dutch to Reject Rival’s Pessimism

    Mark Rutte
    Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte arrives in Brussels to meet with other European leaders, February 12, 2015 (European Council)

    International coverage of Mark Rutte’s reelection campaign in the Netherlands has largely emphasized the ways in which he emulates Geert Wilders.

    This report from The New York Times is a typical example. It claims the liberal premier has taken a “Trump-like turn” in the face of a “hard-right challenge”, siding with the “silent majority” in his country against non-natives.

    It’s a little over the top but not altogether wrong. Rutte’s center-right party has adopted more repressive immigration and integration policies. It has also become more Euroskeptic since Wilders started out a decade ago.

    But it’s not the whole story. (more…)

  • Four Parties Vie for First Place in Dutch Election

    The Hague Netherlands
    Aerial view of Dutch government offices and parliament buildings in The Hague (Tweede Kamer)

    Four parties are vying to become the single largest in the Netherlands’ election on Wednesday.

    The latest average of polls puts Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s liberals in first place with 16 to 18 percent support.

    But the Christian Democrats, liberal Democrats and nationalist Freedom Party are not far behind. Each would get between 12 and 14 percent.

    If the polls are off by a few points, one of those three parties could come out on top. (more…)

  • Rutte Cautions Against Populist “Experiment” in Netherlands

    Mark Rutte
    Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte answers questions from members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, July 5, 2016 (European Parliament)

    Two days before parliamentary elections, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has reiterated his opposition to a pact with the nationalist Freedom Party, telling Geert Wilders in person that the two will “never” work together again.

    Earlier on Monday, Rutte urged voters not to let the Netherlands become the “third domino” that falls to populism after Britain voted to leave the European Union and America elected Donald Trump.

    “This is not the time to experiment,” he told reporters in Rotterdam. (more…)

  • Geert Wilders Isn’t Really Interested in Governing

    Geert Wilders
    Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders gives a news conference in Brussels, June 16, 2015 (European Parliament)

    The absence of a serious manifesto did not suggest that the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders had any intention of governing after the election on Wednesday. Now two former elected officials of his Freedom Party have confirmed that he isn’t interested in power — especially the responsibility that comes with it.

    Jhim van Bemmel, who sat in parliament from 2010 to 2012, told the broadcaster Human that Wilders pulled out of accord with center-right parties that year for fear of losing popularity.

    For two years, Wilders had supported a minority government led by his center-right rival, Mark Rutte. He walked out when the ruling parties proposed more austerity.

    Wilders to this day maintains that he quit in order to protect pensioners from cuts. Van Bemmel disputed that assertion as “total nonsense”.

    Other Freedom Party dissidents have made similar claims. (more…)

  • Netherlands’ Wilders Loses Support to Christian Democrats, Socialists

    I reported here the other day that Geert Wilders’ nationalist Freedom Party is losing support in the Netherlands.

    Now we know where his voters are going.

    The national broadcaster NOS reports that the nationalists are bleeding support to the Christian Democrats on the one hand and the far-left Socialists on the other.

    That might seem odd, given that those parties are opposites in many ways.

    But it makes sense when we look at these movements through the prism of the Netherlands’ “blue-red” culture war. (more…)

  • Polls Point to Six Possible Coalitions in Netherlands

    The Hague Netherlands
    Dutch government buildings in The Hague, January 22, 2015 (Unsplash/Daria Nepriakhina)

    No single party is projected to win a majority in the Dutch parliament next week. Parties will need to team up to form a coalition government.

    Polls suggest there are six options: (more…)

  • Dutch Anti-Wilders Could Face Dilemma After the Election

    The Guardian has a good story about the somewhat surprising rise of the Green party in the Netherlands.

    The Greens had been up in the polls for a while, but their popularity usually falls when center-left voters defect to the Labor Party in the weeks leading up to an election.

    That isn’t happening this year. The Greens are climbing while Labor is bracing for an historic defeat. (more…)

  • Invisible and Unhinged, Wilders Loses Support in Netherlands

    Geert Wilders
    Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders gives a news conference in Brussels, June 16, 2015 (European Parliament)

    Geert Wilders’ strategy of not showing up isn’t doing his Freedom Party much good.

    Support for the party, which wants to take the Netherlands out of the European Union and stop immigration from Muslim countries, has gone down in the polls from a 21-percent high in December to 16 percent today.

    Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s liberals are on track to surpass the Freedom Party as the single largest. In some surveys, they already have.

    Even if the Freedom Party does place first, it is unlikely to join a coalition government. All other major parties have ruled out an accord. (more…)

  • Left-Wing Pact in Netherlands Hinges on Centrist Ambitions

    The most likely outcome of the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands this month is another centrist coalition government led by Mark Rutte, the incumbent prime minister.

    But the polls do show there is another possibility: a center-left government of five parties.

    This is the wish of the Green party and far-left Socialists, who are polling at 10 and 8 percent support, respectively.

    Labor, which is also polling at 8 percent — down from 25 percent in the 2012 election — could probably be persuaded to join such a pact.

    The question is if the Christian Democrats and liberal Democrats would. (more…)

  • Parties Take Sides in Netherlands’ Culture War

    A debate on Sunday between the top female candidates of the five biggest political parties in the Netherlands revealed that the old left-right divide is giving way to something new.

    The center-right liberals and the far-left Socialists are polar opposites in terms of foreign and security policy. Yet they found themselves on the same side when the Christian Democrats proposed to criminalize the glorification of violence.

    The liberal party’s number two and incumbent defense minister, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, cautioned that such a step — targeted at jihadist propaganda — could lead a thought police.

    The Socialists don’t have much in common either with the nationalist Freedom Party, except their candidates both rejected as “fearmongering” warnings from the other parties that an exit from the European Union would surely destroy Dutch jobs.

    The Socialists’ economic program has little in common with the liberal Democrats’, yet the two parties chastised the Christian Democrats, Freedom Party and liberals for suggesting that immigrants who refuse to accept Dutch values, like gay and women’s rights, ought to go back to where they came from. (more…)