Dutch Elections: Key Players and Main Issues in Early Election
Citizens in the Holland are set to possibly exchange the most rightwing administration in recent memory with a more moderate and commonsense alliance during snap parliamentary elections scheduled for 29 October.
The Situation and Its Significance
Snap general elections were triggered after the breakdown of the previous government in June, when rightwing figure the Freedom party leader pulled his PVV from an already unstable and largely ineffective governing alliance.
Wilders' party had finished shockingly first in the 2023 election, and after prolonged talks formed a unstable multi-party conservative alliance with the BBB party, centrist New Social Contract and liberal-conservative VVD.
However, Wilders' government allies considered him too toxic for the premier position, which ultimately went to a former intelligence chief. Wilders, an anti-immigration polemicist who has lived under police protection for two decades, resorted to sniping from outside government.
Wilders finally caused the coalition breakup on 3 June after his partners refused to implement a radical comprehensive immigration restriction proposal that included using military forces to guard frontiers, turning back all refugee applicants, closing most refugee hostels and repatriating all Syrian refugees.
Although support for the PVV has decreased, surveys suggest the far-right, anti-Islam party is once more projected to win the most seats in parliament. But, main Dutch political formations have all ruled out forming a government with Wilders.
No fewer than 16 parties are forecast to gain representation, but no single party is projected to win more than about one-fifth of the vote. As usual, the future Netherlands administration, typically an influential player on the EU and world stage, will emerge only after alliance talks that could take several months.
How the System Works and Party Environment
The parliament contains 150 representatives in the Dutch parliament, meaning a government needs 76 mandates to achieve majority status. No individual group ever manages this, and the Holland has been governed by multi-party governments for over 100 years.
Parliament is elected quadrennially – sooner when governments collapse – through proportional representation, based on an approved list of candidates in a country-wide district: any political group that wins less than 1% of the vote is guaranteed a seat.
As in many European nations, Dutch politics have been marked in modern times by a sharp decline in support for the historical ruling parties from the moderate right and left, whose electoral support has shrunk from more than 80% in the 1980s to just over 40% now.
In the Netherlands, this trend has been accompanied by a remarkable multiplication of minor political groups: twenty-seven are competing this time, including a party for the over-50s, a young people's party, a party for animals, a basic income advocacy group, and a party for sport.
Major Parties and Main Issues
Currently leading is Wilders' PVV, forecast to lose up to eight of the 37 seats it secured last election. It advocates, among other policies, a total moratorium on asylum, Ukrainian men to be returned, the army to fight "street terrorists", and an end to "woke indoctrination" in schools.
Two political groups, of the centre-right and centre-left, are closely competing after the PVV. The Christian Democrats (CDA) led Dutch politics from the end of the seventies to the beginning of the nineties, and once more in the start of the millennium, but dropped to only five mandates in the previous poll.
Nevertheless, under its young leader, its promising new figure, who entered politics just recently, the party has recovered strongly with a electoral platform highlighting the severe Netherlands housing shortage and a commitment of "normal, civilised politics". It is projected for up to twenty-six mandates.
GreenLeft/Labour (GL/PvdA), an electoral alliance between the environmentalist party and the established social democratic party that is expected to become a complete unification, is projected to secure comparable seats, according to polling averages.
Led by the seasoned ex-EU official Frans Timmermans, it has made constructing additional housing its biggest priority, and has debatedly proposed a immigration limit of between forty to sixty thousand people a year in its platform.
Three other parties appear set to be significant forces in the new parliament.
The center-left D66 is projected to gain seats – securing as many as seventeen, from its current nine – under its straight-talking youthful head, with a platform centred on residential construction (it plans to construct ten new urban centers) and an "individual basic benefit" for recipients.
The liberal-conservative VVD, the political group of the ex-premier (now Nato chief), is predicted to decline to at most 16 seats from its present twenty-four, with its leader, accused of moving the group excessively rightward, held responsible for its decrease. It is proposing corporate tax reductions and reduced social benefits.
The anti-establishment, strictly rightwing JA21 is a breakaway group from a different rightwing formation – the once popular, now controversy-plagued Forum for Democracy – and appears to be profiting from an departure of voters from the three major rightwing parties. It could win up to 14 seats.
Besides the two main rightwing parties, both remaining members in the ill-fated previous government, the farmer and centrist parties, are expected to decline, with the NSC not even sure of legislative seats.
The top issues so far have been migration policy, with multiple – occasionally aggressive – demonstrations against proposed asylum facilities for asylum seekers, the living expenses, and the perennial Dutch problem of housing (the country is lacking 400,000 homes).
Potential New Government
Given the deeply divided state of Dutch politics, what alliances are actually possible is equally significant as who wins the election (or in this case, more likely second, since no major party will govern with Wilders, who maintains he intends to head a minority administration).
Following the vote, MPs first appoint an informateur, who seeks out possible alliances. Once a workable alliance has been identified, a formateur, usually the head of the biggest prospective member, begins discussing the government program. This often requires months.
Various combinations look possible, typically including a mix of political groups from moderate left and center right. The most likely, according to political analysts, include Christian Democrats and GreenLeft/Labour, plus D66 and one or more smaller parties possibly incorporating the conservative party.