Your Guide to Dutch Elections, a Bellwether to European Populism

[CaseyJones]

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...opean-populism

In normal times, nobody outside of the Netherlands takes much interest in a Dutch election. Now, a ballot on March 15 -- just as the populist surge sweeps Europe and the U.S. -- has raised the prospect that the Netherlands will be the next domino to fall.

But just how likely is that? Here are six charts that tell you.
Wilders Looks Set to Finish First

All the opinion polls are in agreement: The anti-Islam, anti-European Union Freedom Party led by Geert Wilders is ahead and poised to win the largest number of seats. But here’s the rub: On current trends, it will still have less than a quarter of the members in the new lower house.



The Dutch electoral system is based on fair shares for all: Essentially, about 0.67 percent of the national vote equals one seat in parliament. That means a multiplicity of parties. Coalitions are always needed. And none of the other main groups have expressed willingness to go into partnership with Wilders. Prime Minister Mark Rutte ruled it out altogether.
The Winner Doesn’t Necessarily Take It All

Taking first place confers no right to try and form a government, and there are historical precedents for the winning party being shut out of power. It’s happened three times since World War II.

Back in 1971, the four parties that formed the previous center-right government lost their majority in the election. They added the new Democratic Socialists, who had broken away from Labor, to form a five-party coalition. The new premier, Barend Biesheuvel, came from the third-largest grouping, the Anti-Revolutionary Party.
A More Fragmented Political Landscape

So multiparty politics are nothing new in the Netherlands. But over the past few decades, as elsewhere in western Europe, the traditional major parties have been losing ground to insurgent groups. And that’s a trend that makes building coalitions with a parliamentary majority that much harder.

The corollary is that the smaller groupings gain more clout. They are many and varied: two Christian parties that do well in the Netherlands’ so-called Bible Belt and an animal-rights party are well-established; one for the over-50s is set to join them in the chamber. Those four might get about 25 seats between them, polls indicate. And now a new party has been set up to appeal to the nonvoter.
The Election Is Just the Start

The process of forming a government in The Hague follows a well-worn yet time-consuming path. Parliament appoints a senior politician to take soundings, before a possible prime minister is named to finish the task of putting a team and a coalition accord in place.

Since World War II, it’s taken an average of 72 days to form a government. The speed record, dating from 1958, is 10 days. But be warned: A total of 208 days were required in 1977 to establish a coalition that consisted of only two parties.
How to Form an Anti-Wilders Coalition?

“The most likely outcome of the elections is for a coalition of four or five center-right and center-left parties,” Martin van Vliet and Dimitry Fleming at ING Groep NV in Amsterdam wrote in a Jan. 9 note to investors. But it’s going to be tricky. At the moment, the numbers don’t quite add up.

The four parties that cover the center spectrum would need to bring in a fifth partner to get to the magic 76-seat marker in the lower house. The Greens would make up the numbers, though party leader Jesse Klaver has said it’s very unlikely his party will team up with Rutte’s Liberals.

Another possibility: A myriad group of parties -- again involving the Greens -- has come together at times in recent years to back a Dutch police and military deployment in the Afghan province of Kunduz and a budget accord. But the so-called Kunduz coalition may not do the trick either.

And there’s one more thing to take into consideration: The new government will also need to ensure it has enough votes to get legislation through the indirectly elected upper house, the Senate. The positive for the mainstream parties is that either possible coalition outlined above would have a Senate majority.

[William Tell]

Any thoughts or inside scoop @luctor-et-emergo ?

[CPUd]

Do Dutch elections work like Dutch auctions?

[luctor-et-emergo]

Any thoughts or inside scoop @luctor-et-emergo ?

The Dutch electoral system is based on fair shares for all: Essentially, about 0.67 percent of the national vote equals one seat in parliament. That means a multiplicity of parties. Coalitions are always needed. And none of the other main groups have expressed willingness to go into partnership with Wilders. Prime Minister Mark Rutte ruled it out altogether.
The Winner Doesn’t Necessarily Take It All

This is correct although I think when Wilders actually gets a large share of the seats or becomes the biggest party, some, especially the "VVD" which is currently the biggest party and delivering the PM will cave and go for power. They don't have spines so they will go for power if they can.

Taking first place confers no right to try and form a government, and there are historical precedents for the winning party being shut out of power. It’s happened three times since World War II.

It's simple, if you can form a majority, you've got a government. The 'winner' only has a lot of seats. There is a possibility of this happening depending on the amount of seats that Wilders will get. If he gets 35 and the other 115 are split between 10 parties, they may have to form a coalition with 3-4 parties, which makes it almost impossible to strike a deal, let alone get anything out of it that these parties want. They may not want to step into a situation like that because they could piss off their members/electorate by compromising way too much.

Back in 1971, the four parties that formed the previous center-right government lost their majority in the election. They added the new Democratic Socialists, who had broken away from Labor, to form a five-party coalition. The new premier, Barend Biesheuvel, came from the third-largest grouping, the Anti-Revolutionary Party.
A More Fragmented Political Landscape

So multiparty politics are nothing new in the Netherlands. But over the past few decades, as elsewhere in western Europe, the traditional major parties have been losing ground to insurgent groups. And that’s a trend that makes building coalitions with a parliamentary majority that much harder.

In fact, I don't think it has ever happened that a party got more than 50% of the votes and got to govern on their own. That would be interesting since parties are chosen on a list basis and the party bosses or members by vote determine who's where on the list. So if they don't vote according to the party line, they get replaced with the next elections. There is very little dissidence within parties so a single ruling party would pretty much be able to do what is in their plans... The "Senate" is not a political body in the Netherlands, it just checks laws against the constitution (which is pretty worthless so most draconian laws are called constitutional). Although in recent years some politics have entered the senate.

The corollary is that the smaller groupings gain more clout. They are many and varied: two Christian parties that do well in the Netherlands’ so-called Bible Belt and an animal-rights party are well-established; one for the over-50s is set to join them in the chamber. Those four might get about 25 seats between them, polls indicate. And now a new party has been set up to appeal to the nonvoter.
The Election Is Just the Start

I don't think this is correct. Those 4 parties may well get 25 seats but the Christian Democrats will probably get most of those. The animal rights party (communists who want to ban owning fish tanks etc.) will probably get a few, like they have had for the last couple elections and the 50+ party will in my estimation drop in the polls as we get closer to the elections as people start falling back on the bigger parties.

Last time around the Freedom party (Wilders) and Socialist party were both doing really well in the polls right up until the point the labor party and VVD (called right wing here but about the same as the Democrats in the US) started attracting people because they didn't want the other party to win and everybody let their preference go in order to make sure another party didn't win... Kind of stupid.

The process of forming a government in The Hague follows a well-worn yet time-consuming path. Parliament appoints a senior politician to take soundings, before a possible prime minister is named to finish the task of putting a team and a coalition accord in place.

Since World War II, it’s taken an average of 72 days to form a government. The speed record, dating from 1958, is 10 days. But be warned: A total of 208 days were required in 1977 to establish a coalition that consisted of only two parties.
How to Form an Anti-Wilders Coalition?

“The most likely outcome of the elections is for a coalition of four or five center-right and center-left parties,” Martin van Vliet and Dimitry Fleming at ING Groep NV in Amsterdam wrote in a Jan. 9 note to investors. But it’s going to be tricky. At the moment, the numbers don’t quite add up.

The four parties that cover the center spectrum would need to bring in a fifth partner to get to the magic 76-seat marker in the lower house. The Greens would make up the numbers, though party leader Jesse Klaver has said it’s very unlikely his party will team up with Rutte’s Liberals.

Yeah they are SOOOOOOOOOOO far apart.... I think there's less than 10% difference in their budgets. They want to spend money on different things but generally speaking they all want to spend a lot of money. This is just semantics. They will work together in order to screw the real man on the street. If there's any chance of the people to get some of their power back, suddenly these parties will become great friends, mark my words.
Another possibility: A myriad group of parties -- again involving the Greens -- has come together at times in recent years to back a Dutch police and military deployment in the Afghan province of Kunduz and a budget accord. But the so-called Kunduz coalition may not do the trick either.

And there’s one more thing to take into consideration: The new government will also need to ensure it has enough votes to get legislation through the indirectly elected upper house, the Senate. The positive for the mainstream parties is that either possible coalition outlined above would have a Senate majority.

True but my preference would be a minority government that always needs votes from the opposition in order to get anything done. That would be much more democratic. And people love democracy, lol. Apart from when government can't get anything done apparently. But the government not getting anything done is something I'd prefer over then being 'really effective'. They didn't have a government in Belgium for a while a couple years ago, biggest economic growth they had in years. New government comes in, labor strikes.

Good enough ?

I'm going to vote for the Libertarian party again. They have no seats as of yet. They hired someone from the Ron Paul campaign this time around... They regularly use Ron Paul as an example and their platform is pretty Ron Paul-ish.

BTW, as a foreigner, you are allowed to donate to the Dutch Libertarian Party if you want to make freedom happen in Europe. Keep in mind that all parties together may spend 10 million or so.. Up to several hundred Euro's donations can be anonymous IIRC. So yeah, our campaign finance laws are eh, pretty loose compared to yours. (at least this was the case last election, I must say I haven't followed any changes.)

[William Tell]

Cool, thanks. So you think the LP might win a seat? What about trends, do you expect in 10 years the Netherlands will be more libertarian, more anti immigrant, or more of the same old stuff?

[luctor-et-emergo]

Cool, thanks. So you think the LP might win a seat? What about trends, do you expect in 10 years the Netherlands will be more libertarian, more anti immigrant, or more of the same old stuff?

I think it's hard to say. The LP could win a seat, I don't know.. There has to be a grassroots campaign though since the media will ignore them. And with ignoring I mean, zero airtime. And if there is any airtime it's probably to ridicule. They would need 15x the votes they got the last election or so to win a single seat. But then, anything can happen. I'm certainly talking to some people but I find that a lot people while receptive to lower taxes then say 'yes but not for the rich, they have to pay.', so I'm not sure if I can convince that many people to vote for them. On the other hand, I guess the people that voted in the last election are dedicated and will vote for them again. Which is a luxury that most other parties with no seats do not have. They are more of the same philosophy.

I don't know about it becoming more libertarian. There are reasons why I think the future is great and then there are plenty of reasons why I don't think it will be so great. I think people want to be comforted by charismatic people and those charismatic people will run up the debt because they can, play to peoples fears... And while talking a great deal about good solutions, not actually accomplishing any of them. Overall though, I don't know. Anything can happen. If the LP for instance would be featured on some kind of TV program that people actually watch, a single seat would become easy to get. People with zero name recognition have successfully started new parties before, but they got media attention...

In regards to an anti-immigrant stance, yes I do think people will become more anti-immigrant. Which I think is a sad thing since we're all people and there is no reason to have animosity towards others. I do think that we should stop giving immigrants benefits as soon as they come in. I'd like something where people are free to come but they have to provide for themselves for the first 5 years before they are eligible for anything. And I'm not against refugees but I don't like the way anybody can come over right now. It's not safe and we're allowing people with a vastly different way of life, ideology and birth rate over into our country, in large numbers. In my opinion anyone is welcome as long as they respect our ways and traditions.. I'm afraid though that the anti-immigrant sentiment that in the next years will become greater isn't based on such a rational thought. I'm afraid that people won't really see the difference. Which is a shame because there are some great people who happen to be immigrants.