Who will win the election?

[Bara Mayako]

Since we've had quite a few political threads, these past few days, I thought I'd start one about something that concerns me and almost all the people I know:

Who do we think will win the upcoming election?

Will it be the VVD, and will Rutte be returning to het torentje, or will Roemer be our next PM, and will we have the most extreme left government that our country has ever known? VVD pundits are hoping that Samson of the PvdA will be successful with voters on the left to draw significant numbers from the SP, so that once again the right-wing VVD will be the biggest party in parlement.

Other questions are whether Buma can help the CDA recover, after it's worst defeat ever in the last elections, or whether voters will be disillusioned with Wilders and turn their backs on the PVV, or whether his strategy of blaming it all on the foreigners and the Euro will continue to attract as many voters as the last time, and so whether his party will again be the third biggest party in parlement.

This election is crucial to our future, perhaps to the future of the whole of Europe. If Roemer is elected, surely we will see a much more leftist, anti-Europe government than we have ever had, but then again, should the PVV win more votes, we will have a very rightist, anti-Europe government. Both refuse to bow to the demands of Brussels to limit the budget in this time of crisis, and Wilders, in fact, wants to pull out of the Euro completely. Both want to pull our country out of Afghanistan.

But that is not the only major issue. How will the new cabinet respond to the pension challenge: the major pension funds are threatening to cut pensions by up to 15-25% to meet the requirements set on them. Or the question of college scholarships. The VVD wants to replace the whole scholarship system with student loans. The CDA wants to rescind its own plan to institute a 3000 Euro penalty for students who don't graduate in time.

The situation here is critical, and on September 12th, we'll elect a new parlement, that will have to make some painful choices. Who do you think will come out on top in the next election, and how will the coalition look like that must save our country?

[Mat]

I like Wilders so far from what I have read. It seems whoever wins in the next election that the dutch are firmly anti Europe either way.

[Aphris]

I fear that when Roemer or Wilders get to much power, their party members will abuse it. As has been seen in the past with right and left extremists in power in Russia, Germany and Italy.

Few months ago a SP municipal administrator had a poster of Che Guevara in his office. A journalist commented that Che was a murderer of prisoners. The Socialist just shrugged "a few casualties". I am not waiting for such Maoists in power in my country.
If Wilders comes in office he will treat Muslims in NL just like Hitler treated the Jews. He will try kick them out, dutch passport or not. Or lock them in camps.

[Glaucon]

I like Wilders so far from what I have read. It seems whoever wins in the next election that the dutch are firmly anti Europe either way.

You would like him. He appears to be a political opportunists that uses fear of islam and things foreign in general to get votes. He clearly doesn't really believe in any of the stuff he says (he has been quoted saying so to his own party members and he used to be a liberal), but he says them anyway. He seeks to get the Koran banned and considers Islam not a religion but a terrorist 'ideology'. Brevik (the guy from Norway who killed all those kids because they were left-wing) considered him his political leader.

Figures you would like him.

[Glaucon]

As for the politics of it: Holland has a coalition-system. It has a lot of different parties. And even the largest parties are quite small, really. This old-school socialist party (SP) currently poised to win may become the largest party, but even so, it would still only control about 20-25% of the dutch parliament. So, they can hardly do whatever the hell they want. Which means that they could only join in a government if they could agree with parties in the middle, parties that aren't socialist.

The current prime-minister, Mark Rutte made a deal with the devil (Wilders, of the anti-foreigner party) so he could form a right-wing government. But it seems that friend and foe agree that he paid a price for that: he could get nothing done. No major spending cuts, overal, no right-wing reform (because the Wilders party didn't want any of that). To me, it appears that he made a mistake in that, since that coalition didn't last long.

It seems that now, the dutch have a choice between a center government headed by Rutte, once again, or a center-left one headed by the leader of the socialist party (there is a tradition in Dutch politics that the largest party of a coalition supplies the prime-minister, even when that party isn't in the center of the political spectrum making up that coalition). In either case, the resulting government won't be extremist.

If it is this socialist party, they will still need support of center parties like the Christian Democrats and a small liberal (in the European sense) party that tends to be fiscally conservative. If it is the party of Mark Rutte (a slightly more right wing liberal party - in the Europea sense, again - and also fiscally conservative), they will still need cooperation of the other social democratic party (the dutch Labour party).

So to me, the outcome seems to be given: nothing extremist, but rather a matter of 'flavor' (a bit more left-wing or a bit more right-wing).

[Bara Mayako]

And that seems to me to be the dilemma, if you are to the left but don't want Roemer.

If you vote for the PvdA or GL, you increase the chance that the VVD will be the biggest party and get to form the government. If you vote for the SP, you get Roemer as PM.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[Rob]

Neither SP or PVV are going to be in government. The others are not going to allow it. It's going to be a liberal middle of the road coalition.

[Bara Mayako]

Neither SP or PVV are going to be in government. The others are not going to allow it. It's going to be a liberal middle of the road coalition.

"Liberal" meaning "VVD"? I think we're the only country in the world that would seriously term the VVD a "liberal" party. On every other topic besides gay rights, and religious issues, they are firmly entrenched in the camp the rest of the world calls "conservative".

[Glaucon]

Neither SP or PVV are going to be in government. The others are not going to allow it. It's going to be a liberal middle of the road coalition.

"Liberal" meaning "VVD"? I think we're the only country in the world that would seriously term the VVD a "liberal" party. On every other topic besides gay rights, and religious issues, they are firmly entrenched in the camp the rest of the world calls "conservative".

Hmmm, that may be your anglo-saxon focus. In countries close to the Netherlands, most liberal parties tend to be fairly conservative. Take Germany's FDP, for example. That is certainly a center-right and conservative party. I think the same is true in many European countries. In the US, which lacks a socialist party, the left is dominated by 'liberals', but in Europe, parties calling themselves liberal are generally right of center. Often, they form the natural coalition partners to conversative parties based on religion (Christian democratic parties, catholic partiers, and so on).

For Mat, a liberal is a spend-happy hippie being way to nice to illegal aliens, smoking pot and trying to get Stalin elected. For most European, a liberal is the opposite, the European version of a republican, but without the whole religious/fundamentalist/gay-hating/embryo-adoring religious fundamentalist aspect.

Anyway, if Rob is right, you have nothing to fear. This dreaded socialist party clearly won't get to do anything extreme, even in the apparently unlikely event that they get to be part of the next government.

[Bara Mayako]

I disagree. I see the FDP as slightly left of the CDU/CSU, whereas I see the VVD as slightly to the right of the CDA. Of course, that might be saying more about the difference between the CDA and CDU, but perhaps not. I consider D66 to be more truly liberal. Both VVD and D66 belong to the ALDE, but I don't truly think the VVD belongs there. I believe that originally, its secular roots placed it to the left of the traditional Christian parties in Holland, like the situation in Germany still is today, but in the years that I have been aware of politics, it seems to me to be consistently moving to the right, except on the question of gay rights and abortion. In fact, in my opinion, outside of abortion, the VVD's standpoints and actions on women's issues in recent years is more addressed to the interests of capital and the men who control it, than it is genuinely concerned with helping us to achieve full equality in the workplace. Then again I do believe that Neelie Kroes is the only politician with any balls in the entire VVD, and if she were candidate for PM, I might even vote for her Bringing up any Anglo-Saxon focus I may have, I think the VVD's ideas fit better with that of the British Conservative Party, while D66 is closer to the Liberal Democrats.