Twenty-eight parties were vying for 150 seats in the Dutch House of Representatives. (Emmanuel Dunand / AFP)
Orange may be the new black.
But as it turns out, orange is also the new bulwark for liberal democracy.
Mark Rutte’s governing center-right, liberal Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) performed better than polls predicted in The Netherlands, and Rutte will now return as Dutch prime minister — perhaps through the end of the decade — as head of a multi-party governing coalition.
Conversely, Wednesday’s election amounted to a disappointing result for Geert Wilders and the sharply anti-Europe, anti-Islam and anti-immigration Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Party for Freedom), which blew a longtime polling lead that it had held from the middle of 2015 up to just a couple of weeks ago.
As Dutch voters took a harder look at the campaign, however, they turned away from Wilders’s populism and to the balmier vision of Rutte’s VVD. But they also turned to three other parties that ranged from conservative to liberal to progressive. Indeed, over 65% of the Dutch electorate supported parties that are, essentially, in favor of moderate policymaking, European integration and basic decency to immigrants.
Given that the Dutch election is the first of a half-dozen key European national elections in 2017, all of which are taking place in the dual shadows of last year’s Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s election in the United States, everyone was watching this vote in particular as a harbinger for European elections this year.
Mark Rutte, if polls are correct, will lead his VVD to victory on March 15 — and another term as prime minister. (ANP)
Everything’s coming up Rutte.
Mark Rutte, that is — the prime minister of The Netherlands who will almost certainly find his way to a third term as prime minister after tomorrow’s election.
Even earlier this year, when Geert Wilders’s hard-right Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Party for Freedom) held a substantial lead, it was always virtually assured that Rutte would return as prime minister. Consistently, even as the PVV topped polls, Rutte’s center-right, liberal Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) continued to follow behind in second place, leading the race among the PVV’s mainstream opponents. All along, Wilders’s goal was never forming a government, but the hollow victory of placing first among a half-dozen parties bunched together between 10% and 20% in the polls.
Over the last two weeks, even that has changed to Wilders’s detriment.
The VVD eclipsed the PVV in polls at the end of February, and one shock poll from Ipsos on the eve of the election showed the PVV sliding to fifth place. At a time when Rutte is embroiled in a high-profile diplomatic spat with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (over whether Turkish ministers should be holding campaign rallies in The Netherlands for next month’s Turkish constitutional referendum), Wilders still seems to be losing steam.
Both inside Europe and beyond, the Wilders threat was always smaller than the amount of coverage he’s received. Even when the PVV was leading, no other major party was willing to work with Wilders and the PVV’s toxic brand. Even with the highest number of seats in the Tweede Kamer (House of Representatives), the PVV would fall far short of the majority it would need to form a government. Mostly, that’s due to the PVV’s hardline views on immigration, Islam and the European Union. But it’s also because Wilders proved an unreliable ally to Rutte when he withdrew the PVV’s support for Rutte’s minority government in 2012 over spending, forcing snap elections — a gambit that backfired when the PVV lost nine seats.
What’s very much true — and always has been true — is that support across all parties in tomorrow’s election in The Netherlands could be so dispersed that no party wins more than even 17% of the vote. It could usher in the most fragmented parliament in postwar history, and it will force Rutte to navigate coalition negotiations that include four or even five parties. Don’t hold your breath for the kind of quick deal that followed the 2012 election, the ‘purple’ coalition between Rutte’s liberals and the social democratic Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA, Labour Party).
Labour’s support has collapsed in the ensuing five years. Junior coalition parties are rarely rewarded by voters, but many Labour supporters believe the party far too willing to compromise with Rutte on spending after Labour waged a popular campaign against budget austerity. (It is still projected to win between nine and 14 seats in the election under a new leader, Lodewijk Asscher.)
If the VVD and the PVV finish first and second, respectively, as most polls still forecast, the race for third place is murkier. The conservative Christen-Democratisch Appèl (CDA, Christian Democratic Appeal), the center-left/liberal Democraten 66 (Democrats 66) and the leftist GroenLinks (Green Left) are all surging, and the CDA and D66 are widely tipped to enter government after coalition negotiations. GroenLinks is likely to make the strongest gains of any party (more even than Wilders) after the successful campaign of its fresh-faced 30-year-old leader, Jesse Klaver.
If there’s any consensus among the Dutch electorate, voters are choosing from a group of five or six parties, each dedicated to European integration, liberal democracy and moderate policy prescriptions — not fear-mongering xenophobia. No matter what happens tomorrow, Wilders will have a smaller role in shaping Dutch policy than, say, the more circumspect D66 leader Alexander Pechtold, who could become Rutte’s deputy prime minister in a new coalition. Pechtold may not have the international profile that Wilders has acquired with his ‘Make The Netherlands Ours Again’ histrionics, but he could be in a position to push the next government to a more pro-immigrant and pro-European orientation.
None of this, most especially the PVV’s apparent collapse, should be shocking.
Jesse Klaver, the youthful leader of GroenLinks, hopes to make his party a player for the first time in the Dutch House of Representatives. (Facebook)
The first thing you notice about Jesse Klaver is just how much he looks like Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau.
The second thing you notice is that he’s so young — at 30 years old, he’s a full decade and a half younger than Trudeau and between 12 and 24 years younger than the other major Dutch party leaders.
But the more important point about Klaver, who has also been likened to John F. Kennedy, is that he’s making his leftist GroenLinks (Green-Left) a genuine player in Dutch politics for the first time since it came into existence in 1989. If polls are correct, GroenLinks will surge from just four seats to as many as 20 seats after the Dutch electorate votes in two weeks.
Klaver is the freshest face among the half-dozen or so party leaders who will be forced to work together after the March 15 election to forge a new government. Unlike in past elections, GroenLinks could be a key player in what will likely be a four- or five-party coalition that forms the next Dutch government. It’s very unlikely that Klaver would agree to bring his party into any coalition headed by current prime minister Mark Rutte. Nevertheless, Klaver’s party, which is as firmly pro-European as Rutte and likely the next Rutte-led government, could offer in opposition an alternative anti-austerity voice than the populist Geert Wilders.
Klaver’s party is locked in a tight contest among potentially five different parties for third place, behind Rutte’s center-right liberal Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD, People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) and Wilders’s the anti-Islam, anti-immigrant and eurosceptic Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Party for Freedom).
Wilders has dominated news coverage of the campaign both in The Netherlands and abroad, with his party surging to a formidable polling lead two years ago. Wilders, who pledges to ‘Make The Netherlands Great Again,’ promises a Trump-style rupture to halt the flow of refugees into The Netherlands and the flow of sovereignty from Amsterdam to Brussels. Wilders, like Trump and other far-right nationalists across Europe, is giving voice to a growing cadre of displaced and dispirited working-class voters who might have voted for left-wing parties a decade or two ago.
Though many polls forecast that the PVV will win the largest number of seats in the 150-member Tweede Kamer (House of Representatives), recent surveys show that the VVD’s support is plateauing or even, within the last week, falling. Even if Wilders and the populists do win the largest bloc of seats in the House, none of the other major Dutch parties are willing to entertain joining a Wilders-led coalition.
All of which means that the threat of an illiberal and xenophobic Dutch government, in 2017 at least, are far-fetched.
