Dutch elections - Did Wilders loose?
Erlo,
The poldermodel is dead
Dutch politics is complicated,
Ive heard people state that this election the march 2017 election in the Netherlands, VVD won and Wilders has lost.
This comes out of a English way of politics where in a first past the post system this would be true, here it isn't and not only because the votes are atually more divided over more partys then ever but also because it is statistically incorrect;
I will take you on a journey through the past years in which instead of only looking at the last election I will compare results to the state of affairs in 2002 when right before the elections the leader of the new party lijst Pim Fortuyn(1) was murdered(2) so we can see who actually did win relative to that point in the end. (Actual blog link (1) doesn't work, find it on my blog page)
( Purple ; reigned under kok in (1) left-right combination VVD labour and D66 (93-97 of 150 seats during 1994-2002 era (2) )
Pre2002 seats:
[Darker color are the seats in the pre-2002 parliament, lighter is the polls for the coming 2002 election]
PVDA 45 (purple) [Left to left of centre ; Pro EU, Social-democrats / Labour]
VVD 38 (purple) [Right to Right of centre ; Pro EU, Liberal]
CDA 29 [Right of centre ; Pro EU, Christian-democrats]
LPF 0 [Right ; EU critical / Anti-establishment]
D66 14 (purple) [Left of centre to centre ; (very) Pro-EU Social-liberals / Progressives ]
GL 11 [Left ; (very) Pro EU, Environmentalist, Socialist, Feminist, Communist, Pacifist, Radical and Evangelicals (what? don't believe me? check the wikipage)]
SP 5 [Left ; (Somewhat) EU critical, Social democrat, Socialist, Communist]
CU 5 (2 partys) [Left ; (somewhat) EU critical, Christian-socialist (which is something like; against homosexual marriage, anti EU and euthanesia while at the same time being progressive on immigration, economics or environment.... somehow) ]
SGP 3 [Right ; (Somewhat) EU critical, Calvanistic Traditionalists (opposes universal sufferage in favor of organic sufferage), check wiki page) ]
[Pim fortuyn assasinated right before the election]
2002 election seats:
PVDA 23 (-22) (compared to previous election) (purple)
VVD 24 (-14) (purple)
CDA 43 (+14)
LPF 26 (+26)
D66 7 (-7) (purple)
GL 10 (-1)
SP (+4)
CU 4 (-1)
SGP 2 (-1)
(Purple lost compared to pre-2002 -43)
The cabinet Balkenende I was a Netherlands cabinet, formed by a coalition between CDA, LPF en VVD, with as prime-minister Jan Peter Balkenende.
[Errrr...]
With a minister without a budget on a new department of newcomerspolicy and integration (later to be renamed; integration, youth protection, prevention and prisonerrehabilitation, because .. you know.. statistics) and put department of development afairs direcly under executive order of a state secretary with the right to act as if he was a minister in other nations..)
Introduction cabinet: 22 july 2002
Dissolvement of cabinet requested: On 16 oktober 2002 (3 months)
Without new elections a new cabinet was formed between CDA VVD and D66 with a mere 3 seats majority in parliament
3 september 2004 Geert(1) Wilders leaves the VVD(2), the cabinet is reduced to 2 seats above majority line in parliament.
(It finally came down to one subject; The VVD conforms to the European Union. Under that policy, Turkey can join the EU if the country meets the criteria as a strict separation between church and state, But Wilders is a staunch opponent of Turkish membership. And he wants the freedom to convey that view and to be able to vote against that proposition when it comes up for a vote under Dutch EU presidency this fall (2004))
27 june 2006 June Mark Rutte resignates as state secretaty of education, culture and science as he finds that now he became the VVD's leader he cant take part in the cabinet, the cabinet falls 2 days later, a rumpcabinet is formed following the crisis about the functioning of Minister Verdonk of beforementioned newcomers policy and integration also the "ayaan crisis" (ayaan hirsi ali) .
Zembla (a very deep digging actuality programme here) mentions that hirsi ali has lied about her background at naturalisation in 1997 and used a false personality, this was known as hirsi ali already had spoken about this in a 2002 TV programme. As minister of newcomerpolicy and integration Verdonk investigates if Hirsi Ali's (both VVD) citizenship can be revoked, based on a high counsel judgement Hirsi Ali is asummed to not have gotten the Dutch citizenship. This led to a lot of an emotional reaction of Verdonks predecesor Hilbrand nawijn (LPF who left the party later) who "coincidentely" happened to be the director of the Naturalisation agency during Hirsi Ali's naturalisation process... which should have landed him in jail if you ask me.
Hilbrand started with a immigration advise agency via that he moved through the CDA and the misnamed agency called childcare into the LPF as a cabinet minister, opportunist? smart? or fishy? you decide.
Some leftists kneejerked and and of course part of the VVD as well, Verdonk was pressured into further investigating and some month later all of the sudden found that Hirsi Ali could retain citizenship after all.. as if by magic
28 juni 2006 a debate started at 9 pm that would last until 5:30 am, the night of Verdonk in which the prime minister Balkenende, slipped his tongue and stated that the declaration was made such that "Verdonk could live with it"
D66 supported a motion of rejection applied by Greenleft but the motion was rejected on majority base.
Lousewies van der Laan who was D66s leader until 4 days before this whole event she lost to an internal referendum within D66 to Alexander pechtold ... coincidently she was a supporter of closing religious schools (main theme islamitic but general secularism), the same year she recieved the frontal nude award for her achievements for the threatened free word in the Netherlands.. also purely coincidental, of course, she stated that according to her something had to happen, the prime minister would have to choose in favor of verdonk or D66...
well the day after the cabinet unaminously announced to not replace verdonk based on the motion not passing
Following this ministers of D66 Alexander Pechtold, Brinkhorst and van der Laan resigned (Governmental renewal and kingdom relations, economics, culture & media)
As this unelected rumpcabinet fell in this disaster it was decided .... to make a new rumpcabinet under Balkende a minority cabinet nontheless 4 seats under majority line... the function now would only be to lead upto the next election of 2006
[I couldnt write this myself if I tried, maybe have a look at my game of thrones video later.. ]
2006 election seats:
PVDA 33 (-12) (compared to pre-2002) (+10) (compared to 2002) (purple)
VVD 22 (-16) (-2) (purple)
CDA 41 (+12) (-2)
PVV 9 (+9) (+9) (new) [Right ; EU critical; Liberal (nationalist under current conditions) ]
LPF 0 (0) (-26)
D66 3 (-8) (-4) (purple)
GL 7 (-4) (+3)
SP 25 (+20) (+16)
CU 6 (+1) (+2)
SGP (-1) (0)
PvdD 2 (+2) (+2) (new) [Left ; (Somewhat) EU critical, Environmentalist, Socialist, Feminist ]
(Purple loss compared to pre 2002: -36 (gained 7 this election))
The LPF broke down(1) probably with help of earlier(2) named Nijwijn but some other interesting things happen, D66 was not exactly celebrated for their integrity remaining the same, but who gained from this, well, compared to those pre 2002 levels purple partys regained seats they lost 43 during the 2002 election after the assasination of pim fortuyn, these being the partys calling him ad hominems of the 3rd kind and those diversity-magicians, and compared to the same moment they now lost 36, making them regain a total of 7.
But who gained the most; well mr prime minister balkende's CDA even with losing 2 seats on this issue they gained 12 compared to pre 2002 levels.
A clear rise of the left and right the socialists gain 16 seats and get to 25 up 20 compared to pre-2002 levels as well as gains made by other left leaning party's, also the new arrival Geert Wilders obtains a large gain 9 seats as well as the party of the animals on their respective issue gained 2.
A great study of the horseshoe-politics model.
So learning jack shit at all, guess who gets to run another cabinet... well mr Balkenende of course, who in the runup to the 2002 election was profiting by not attacking Pim Fortuyn too hard, but gained the 14 seats after the murder on Pim.
You might like to know that balkenende was mostly unknown and the CDA had just had 2 major election cycle losses, he rose to the top when fractionhead Jaap de Hoop Shaeffer had to leave after a powerstuggle, with a renewal movement within the party a new partyhead was proposed and De hoop Shaeffer at first agreed but then came back on that, and when the proposed new lead then wanted to be 3rd on the list Jaap blocked that, he finally left after concluding the party had no trust in him left and thus balkenende came to the scene.
So with this result Balkende could form cabinet nr IV under his lead now with labour as the main partner, With "cathy mottos" and spending the first 100 days of the cabinet period traveling through the country which convientely kept the opposition out of any new policys that were to be presented only at prince-day the start of the fiscal year, as well as the return of projectministers without a department, a thing done first before 2000, when the unforseen milleniumbug was an issue; well I call that you 0 AB, after the bug.. and I have a reason why, that was in my view a social experiment the y2k.
And I cant leave out the Vogelaarwijken a list of 40 of the worst neighbourhoods, ironically called by this lady, the (labour and ex commie) succesor of Rita Verdonk "powerneighbourhoods" and "beautyneighbourhoods" .. you know newspeak and all..
Now this list had a predecesor in the list of "kamp", Vogelaar also known for stating "that centurys ago jewish immigrants came to the netherlands and now we say the netherlands is formedby jewish-christian traditions" (which is in the constitution) and that she is not against funding mosques with taxation money even with the law seperating church and state as according to her; you would be subsidizing the civil work not the religious activity's ... right.
Much to mark rutte's credit he did go against this as hard as the PVV did, pointing amongst things to the fact jewish-christian refers to the religions origin and not immigration.After this she hired a partymember to teach her to spindoctor a better message for a mere 187,50 euros an hour, after this young new media geenstijl, who ran but did not make the cut in this 2017 election by the way, followed the "decorative" minister and she denied having a spindocter which resulted in minuteslong painful silence.
She then stated on the radio that rather than being silent she wondered if she should have hit Rutger with a handbag (I'm sure that'll work in those "power neighbourhoods") and if the internet based media producers of geenstijl should even be acknowledged by politicians as regular journalism.
(getting our first hints at that "alternative/fake news" narrative here)
And as you know this just cant end we move on to the next disaster;
A government owned rental housing agency had bought the ship SS Rotterdam and calculated its repairs to cost about 6 million euro's due to asbestos this had already risen to 200 million.Why in the first place?... well either way with her delussions she still thought the ship would make a profit.
Please note the credit crisis just started, the socialists put forward a motion of distrust but other partys kept supporting her (does it take a marxist to recognise a marxist?, interesting question).
And to not to discontinue this utter waterfall of polical incompetence and retardation; to top it all of she visited the dutch antilles where she cancelled the reference index for problematic Antillian adolescence under pressure of the antillian delegation on her visit there, without approval of her party or cabinet.
As this index had been discussed about for 1 an a half year prior, the same day she would be summoned to the cabinet leader and that would be the end of her, but not before she un-ironically stated to ''not recognise herself in the judgement that she was no longer capable to perform as an effective authority", she was of opinion she was on the right track and wanted to continue... (sigh)
In good tradition she blamed the party leader who had been holding his hand over her head for the past year, hereafter she wrote a book, evenly unironically called "20 months utterly crazy" and with that we will leave Elle behind...
I am not much for swearing but Jesuuuus fucking H Christ... that period was torture, note here that I was around 20 then and very much still believing and enthousiastic about politics... god damn..
I do need to mention one small thing still relating to this; in between they tried to pressure Verdonk into approving a general pardon and such would continue to be pushed after the take-over of the department by Vogelaar, allowing any illegal that already had their application rejected and had been 6 years in the nation to become an instant citizen with little to no vetting required,
which passed with the lowest possible margin of 75 in favor and 74 against (one absent or not voted)
This came down to according to official figures 28000 people including the 1 time option for asylumseekers to amend their personal identification in case they lied the first time.In 2008 the minister of justice made known that 3000 households in the general pardon use community benefits, this is aside from all that already had community benefits only 15% of 'pardonners' has a job.
For example leeuwarden has 200 people under pardon, which is 10 times higher than the first prognosis, leeuwwarden ha stated that 90 households of the pardon have applied for WWB (Social security), given that a household is multiple persons this means factually 100%, other citys report the same to add there have been no provisions made for terms of extradition in case of not complying with the pardon. (sigh)
Now this partnership between CDA and Labour would lead into an issue running back to the year 2005 in which labour was the largest opposition party and set against the idea of getting involved in the NATO mission in afghanistan.
Henk Kamp who used to be a reïntegration coach then moved to Civil housing, public ordening and environmental issues and then for some ...strange.. reason got the defense department,
Well he was a big supporter of this mission... I wonder why.. but foreign affairs minister Ben bot was sceptical and found that if NATO wanted us to join, that we also needed to be able to set certain demands for the 'rebuild' of Afghanistan, which was highly unpopular under the populous with iraq quite recent.
Ben bot is an cum laude law school student that used to be ambassador to the european community, then became a substitute permanent ambasador to the NATO and then to the EU, during his minister period he worked to progress entry of turkey into the EU and a big supporter of the EU constitution (62% voted no in dutch referendum with large turnout, other referendums were canned in france and denmark), he left there to become the minister of foreign afairs when Jaap de Hoop Sheffer became secretary general of the NATO.
Now guess who did a "urgent request for the Netherlands to join the afghanistan after a decision was prosponed when Labour had increased doubts after Mullah Dadullah of the Taliban stated dutch military would be a target, well Jaap de hoop shaeffer.
D66 was firm and stated; our conclusion do not do it.
A little later the mission went ahead with 127 votes in favor with support of labour and D66 for 2 years later enlenghtened to 2010, in 2010 there were talks about staying in afghanistan yet again in which the Labour party would stick its gun and did not support this but the other cabinet party CDA did in not very subtle ways support this.
Customary the NATO came with another urgent call to arms, now from Rasmussen which put the debate on edge, the CDA proposed to carry the debate over the municipality elections with the aim to make the suggestion that labour would turn around again anyway hoping that would cost them in those elections, labour did not bite and forced a decision,
Which was the breakup of the kabinet and the making of another rumpcabinet; this time a 47 of 175 seats counting christian pure round
2010 election seats:
PVDA 30 (-15) (compared to pre 2002) (-3) (compared to 2006) (purple)
VVD 31 (-7) (+9) (purple)
CDA 21 (-8) (-20)
PVV 24 (+24) (+15)
D66 10 (-4) (+7) (purple)
GL 10 (-1) (+3)
SP 15 (+10) (-10)
CU 5 (0) (-1)
SGP 2 (-1) (0)
PvdD 2 (+2) (0)
(Purple loss compared to pre 2002: -26) (gained 10 this election)
Now this was a complicated outcome, pretty much the same as in 2003 but with now with a minority between the 2 partys labour and the 15 seat increase of Wilders, what exactly did people say about who is losing again?
We are back at purple, labour and liberals on top, to prevent this the only other option was taken: a "gedoogkabinet" now I need to tell you what gedogen is.
Basicly its turning a blind eye to something that technically illegal; so they formed a minority cabinet of the same CDA now dimished with the liberals also dimished with a blind eye support of the PVV of Geert wilders meaning he wasnt part of making the policy but officially was part of the cabinet, this is illegal and to add it was the smallest minority even with wilders 76 of 150 seats, of this one member left the PVV party and went on as a one man fraction but kept his support for the cabinet going (probably exactly what the voters wanted).
So we might as well call this Balkenende V rather than Rutte I, as it included that same CDA, regardless;,this led to the crisis(1) in the Catshuis(2) where Wilders and Rutte are talking about where they did not reach consensus on the budget(3)
Wilders retracted his blind I policy and another election was set with the cabinet containing 52 of 150 seats;
2012 election seats:
PVDA 38 (-7) (compared to pre 2002) (+8) (compared to 2010) (purple)
VVD 41 (+3) (+10) (purple)
CDA 13 (-16) (-8)
PVV 15 (+15) (-9)
D66 12 (-2) (+2) (purple)
GL 4 (-7) (-6)
SP 15 (+10) (0)
CU 5 (0) (-1)
SGP (0) (+1)
PvdD 2 (+2) (0)
50+ 2 (+2) (+2) (new) [Centre ; One issue elderly]
(Purple loss compared to pre 2002: -6) (gained 20 this election))
CDA and PVV were punished for this episode and aside from the greying generation showing up in the 50+ party.
This result did not help; the public voted for purple with even more numbers then the previous election, the thing they wanted to avoid in the first place as everybody remembered the 2002 election.
Remarkable for this period is that this cabinet did not get a mojority in the first chamber, it started exacty middleline but lost its majority during the period due to splitoffs in partys.
This cabinet was advised on by Henk Kamp... hmm I dont know, maybe its just me but it just seems like the same names come up again and again, it was the first cabinet formation in history where the monarch didn't play a role and the first that completed a cabinet period since 1998 the last purple cabinet.
So did we come full circle now purple regained most of their seats?
Well not quite; both on the left as on the right side we have relative growth compared to pre-2002 levels and we can only guess what had happened if Pim Fortuyn was never killed
Regardless of that, the biggest relative winners compared to pre-2002 are PVV (gained 15 seats relative) and the Socialists (gained 10 seats relative).
Finally we arrive at the present day, in the world where these demographic movements and the causes of them have gone global, Brexit, Le Pen, Trump and many more:
2017 election seats:
PVDA 9 (-36) (compared to pre 2002) (-29) (compared to 2012) (purple)
VVD 33 (-6) (-8) (purple)
CDA 19 (-10) (+6)
PVV 20 (+20) (+5)
D66 19 (+5) (+7) (purple)
GL 14 (+3) (+10)
SP 14 (+9) (-1)
CU 5 (0) (0)
SGP 3 (0) (0)
PvdD 5 (+5) (+3)
50+ 4 (+4) (+4)
DenK 3 (+3) (+3) (new) [Left ; Pro-EU, Socialist, Multiculteralism, Affirmative action ]
FvD 2 (+2) (+2) (new) [Right ; EU critical, Conservative, Direct & E-democracy ]
(Purple loss compared to pre 2002: (-37) (lost 21 this election))
Well as said we havn't come full circle;
I heard many people from outside the Netherlands, even those in Europe, claim that Wilders had lost and the VVD won.
Now first off both of these partys are liberal right partys and bar the immigration and EU issues that were already the cause in 2002 they have no big deviations in policy, if anything it makes the reluctance of them 2 to work together even stranger, but as you have noticed this didn't happen without reason;
So let's look at the figures;
In any ordinary circumstance there would have been no reason for a strange result, the previous cabinet was able to run a budget surplus, payed back on the government debts and in a more general sense was an unremarkable but functioning lot.
The main mediafocus was to be on Wilders and the full 4 years seemed to be a campaign period for most party's.
Now did Wilders loose?... well people might look at the polls from right before the election and have seen that wilders was set at 24 there and ended up with 20, giving credence to the idea wilders lost the final debate, the more as the VVD became biggest; But did he loose?
Well lets see; wilders gained 5 seats compared to the previous election but compared to pre2002 he gained 20 seats... (13.3% of the population)
So what did the before mentioned 'purple partys' do? VVD, PvdA and D66, Well together they lost 21 seats in this election... the Labour party getting the most of it being decimated dropping from 38 to 9, before this election the 2002 election was noted to be Labours worst loss when they lost 22 seats ending at 23, here they lost 29 seats ending on 9... just to give you some perspective, small detail it would have even been 8 were it not that they were listpaired with the greens and got 1 seat due to that.
VVD dropped 8 seats compared to last elections which brings them on -6 compared to pre2002 levels... So is that what is called winning these days? As far as I can see 20 seats have moved right there.
But something strange happened here; for the first time D66 who was not in the cabinet did not follow the purple trend, gaining 7 seats opposed to previous election brining them to + 5 compared to pre-2002, I guess Pechtold is back.
CDA profitted a bit from not being in the cabinet, just like with the previous purple cabinet gained 9 compared to last election but are 10 below the pre-2002 level.
Remarkably the greens gained 10 bringing them above pre-2002 levels; this could be those 10 seats the SP had 2 elections back and can be put down to a fresh young trudeau look a like face in the party.
The Animal party gained another 3 seats, 50+ party gained 2, showing that those respective issues are not dealt with and still rise and I know people will say: 'well what's 3 seats?', but you are thinking in 3rd party US terms now, going from 2 to 5 seats means you just more than doubled your influence on anyseperate motion and law here.
13 new partys entered this election, among who 'geenstijl' (remember vogelaar), this proving once again that our system is so divided you can't really say anyone has won as this leads to a 4 or maybe even 5 party cabinet, while we just came from a 2 party cabinet and that while at least 2 partys have claimed beforehand to exclude working together with at least one other party.
The new party's that obtained seats were;
Forum for Democratie who seems a modernist party aimed at the ICT economy their main points, stopping the expansion of the EU, direct democracy, dutch cultural protection, referenda about the Euro and open borders, non intervention in the middle east, mendingrussian relations, this party is headed by the person that was fundamental to the Ukraine referendum (which we voted no on but was unsurprisingly approved in the chamber nontheless) who wrote among others the book "the attack on the nationstate" again, to paint some context.
The other is DenK which are a couple of turkish dual national ex-labour members that split of labour because they did not agree to that party's integration policy, and if you have read so far (I'm impressed) then you might know that the labour partys immigration policy already was very ermmm "progressive", the name is turkish for equality, just to show how dutch they are, in basis they are a islamist-light party parading under the banner of the by now sour tasting terms tolerance and equality.
DenK wants to implement migrationhistory within the education which ill leave up to you to imagine how unbiassed that would be and they want to replace the word integration with acceptation as the whole of the Netherlands are racist fascists, well if they feel like that,I know of a sultan to be in a Nation that feels the same... in fact the guys of DENK do not even need to apply for a new pasport.
In the run up some dutch semi-celeb SJWs joined that party in a true americanesk way which led to infighting where Sylvana Simons first was all up and promoting this DenK but then left because she didnt get room for female and gay emancipation.... who would have guessed that's an issue with islamists.. she left to start a party article 1, refering to article 1 in the constitution of the Netherlands.
Our first ammendment isnt freedom of speech but anti-discrimination which pretty much proofs all those villifications, right?
B.t.w. if you wonder what article free speech is in the netherlands; that would be 7 right after the freedom of religion..; just so you know what is actually important here... we have state media and a theocracy and people think we are a secular democracy, The best slaves are those that think they are free.
And in a true parallel to those Young Turks we hear so much about, DenK denies the armenian genocide, which just for the record is punishable by law in Turkey to acknowledge... for contrast in the Netherlands denying the holocast is the thing that is punishable by law... I hardly even know what to say, a lot goes through the mind but Ill just leave it at that for now.
I will end it with the reason why these turkish people split of which shows in a statement they made, they claim that the leader of their previous Party labour had failed because he stated that the integration of turkish people isnt working because Turkish organisations work against it, well if even within labour some conclusions about the past 20 years..
So unlike the state media I do know why it 'feels' wilders got a few seats less then 'expected', I also know where the labour votes went and why the Socialist wern't able to profit from this.
To conclude;
Given that the middle 'purple party's of the jolly diversity era' are down 37 compared to pre- 2002 and given that the the more right party's (PVV FvD) are up 22 seats since pre2002, as well as the polar left (GL SP animal party 50+ DenK) that are up 24 seats since pre2002, it is incorrect to conclude the party of Wilders has lost anything.
It is clear that the middle partys are still losing even if they regained a little in the upheaval during the years, the votes that are missing and made it so that a full right cabinet was not possible is due to the loss of the cabinet party CDA which would have been a likely candidate to work with.
As said; the result is as split as it can be but the trend to me is clear.
And yes, before you ask me, I do think that the hard to see through complicated percent based representation is better than first past the post; It might be easier to know "who won" in the states, but how joyful is that with so little choice.
I know it is a preference thing but to me it explains why in the US elections are a circus and here we tend to be more focussed on the margin, thats not only because the US has the most important leader, I see the same in the UK, these two systems are just that polar, it is not much of a wonder that the integration of the UK in the EU has failed.