Dutch general election - September 2012

[jeron]

Also, SGP +2? Wtf.

Their all-time best isn't it? Only in this election.

It would be, yes. Incredibly enough, the SGP has had either 2 seats or 3 seats since ... wait for it ... 1925.

The fact that they'll apparently be back up to 3 now, though, does remind me of this post by Erik Voeten on the political science blog The Monkey Cage, in which he suggested that Van der Staaij's Akin-like remark about rape and pregnancy was a deliberate ploy to gain publicity and extra votes: themonkeycage dot org / blog / 2012 / 08 / 30 / the-diffusion-of-stupid-and-offensive-ideas

(I didn't agree at the time, but they certainly don't seem to have been hurt by his remarks..

Well, SGP always profits when turnout is low

[nimh]

Interesting data here (I'm not even gonna try posting another link) - the NOS Politiek 24 site, if you go to where the incoming results are and you click the Analysis tab, also gives you the possibility to get lists of where any party has done best so far, and where they won the most.

Take the VVD. Where did it do best? Where the rich people live, of course: Laren, 54%; Blaricum, 49%; Rozendaal, 48%; Bloemendaal, 46%; Naarden, 46%.

But where did it win the most? Mostly rural, agrarian municipalities. Renswoude, +15%; Bunschoten, +15%; Tubbergen, +15%; Midden-Delfland, +13%.

This is probably a reflection of the collapse of the CDA, and also distinctly bad news for that party. Rural/agrarian Netherlands, along with retired people, were the sole remaining sectors where the CDA was still doing well. If even the villagers, who generally tend to be more stable in their voting patterns, get used to seeing the VVD as their new default party, it will make the CDA's prospects for resurgence distinctly harder.

I.e. look at the CDA's biggest losses: Bunschoten, -17%; Tubbergen -14%; Boekel, -12%; Sint Oedenrode, -12%; Renswoude, -11%.

Tubbergen remains the CDA's best municipality so far, with an impressive 30% of the vote, but its second best place, Hellendoorn (23%) also shows up in the party's list of biggest losses (-10%).

In general, the CDA's list of 10 worst losses so far is marked by a fair number of municipalities in the East, which had been the one region where the party's vote had relatively held up best in 2010 even as its vote in the South collapsed: Tubbergen, Putten, Dalfsen, Hellendoorn.

[nimh]

Well, SGP always profits when turnout is low

According to the NOS, turnout is 75% so far, and that's exactly what turnout was in 2010, so that doesn't explain the difference.

[jeron]

Of course you can be principled and refuse to govern with VVD, but that means you will never achieve anything. Just like SP

Do you realize how much this reasoning is politically flawed ?

It says : you have to achieve something, anything, so you have to govern, so you have to govern with whichever the main parties might be at the time.

Firstly, that's what dragged CDA as low as they are now, because they could not at any time step down government and think a bit of what they actually thought and wanted to implement.

And secondly, it says that any party must do anything according to whichever circumstances are present. No convictions. No beliefs. No projects. Only emergency measures with whoever is on top that day. I'm sorry but a left-wing party has to ensure the defense of the workers class, and that is just not possible with right-wing parties, so they just stay in opposition and try to be more convincing to that worker class next time. They don't just say "we have to at least do something" that will nearly certainly be counter-productive to the class they ought to defend.

Are you a political activist of any party ?

I didn't say you have to govern no matter what, but you have to be prepared to compromise. If you won't do that, you'll never be in government, because the leftist parties do not have a majority. I think SP has had very little influence and in the end that is why you are in politics.
The decision of CDA in 2010 was a mistake and i thought so at that time.

As to your question: i am a D66 member

[jeron]

Well, SGP always profits when turnout is low

According to the NOS, turnout is 75% so far, and that's exactly what turnout was in 2010, so that doesn't explain the difference.

They said earlier that overall turnout was lower

[Zuza]

Oh, AND one last thing : nobody calls left-wing a party that is ready to govern with the right, whatever its motives on bloody debt reduction or sh!t may be : you govern with the right, except maybe in time of war or invasion, you're center, so you're right-wing. Period. PvdA is right-wing, SPD is, SPÖ is.

Using the same logic we can state that CDA, VVD, CDU/CSU and ÖVP are left-wing because of their cooperation with social democratic parties :-).

[Antonio the Sixth]

So, with 63% counted, it's :

VVD : 40 (+9)
PvdA : 39 (+9)
PVV : 15 (-9)
SP : 15 (NC)
CDA : 13 (-8)
D66 : 12 (+2)
CU : 5 (NC)
GL : 3 (-7)

That's... interesting. The SP result is a huge disappointment, and the left overall seems to be underperforming a bit. The PVV's debacle however is quite rejoicing, and it's fun to see the CDA fall into irrelevancy after decades of political prominence. And at least, there is still a tiny chance that PvdA overtakes VVD (though I wouldn't bet on it). Oh, can someone explain me what happened to GroenLinks ?

Huge improvement compared to the previous parliament, anyways.

[freek]

Well, SGP always profits when turnout is low

According to the NOS, turnout is 75% so far, and that's exactly what turnout was in 2010, so that doesn't explain the difference.

Some voters returned from voting CU or PVV back to the SGP.

[Insula Dei]

About GL: This forum would say they found it necessay to prove themselves a 'very serious party'. They basically helped VVD and CDA to pass a lot of stuff Wilders didn't allow them to pass.

[Insula Dei]

Also, lol at the tense faces with the VVD after the NOS man said that their margin over the PvdA is shrinking.

[lilTommy]

So, with 63% counted, it's :

VVD : 40 (+9)
PvdA : 39 (+9)
PVV : 15 (-9)
SP : 15 (NC)
CDA : 13 (-8)
D66 : 12 (+2)
CU : 5 (NC)
GL : 3 (-7)

That's... interesting. The SP result is a huge disappointment, and the left overall seems to be underperforming a bit. The PVV's debacle however is quite rejoicing, and it's fun to see the CDA fall into irrelevancy after decades of political prominence. And at least, there is still a tiny chance that PvdA overtakes VVD (though I wouldn't bet on it). Oh, can someone explain me what happened to GroenLinks ?

Huge improvement compared to the previous parliament, anyways.

... You took the question right out of my mouth, what happened with the GL? we already discussed CDA and PVV. The D66 has gained some as well, any reason there since most of the "smaller" parties seemed to lose ground

Also, even though SP stagnated in the end; they have moved from the 5th party to the 4th party

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

The SP result is a huge disappointment.

You have changed your oppinion about the European Union Antonio?

Of course out of two left-wing parties I'd prefer the Euro-sceptic one to do better as well.

[RogueBeaver]

Question: what's the 1 "partial result" on the Google map? Overseas territories?

[Antonio the Sixth]

The SP result is a huge disappointment.

You have changed your oppinion about the European Union Antonio?

Is the SP really anti-EU, or just anti-austerity? I know people love to mistake the latter for the former (which is especially ridiculous since austerity is what is actually killing EU), but I admit I don't know their stances very well. Anyways, I think that, in countries like Netherlands where mainstream left parties have abandoned 90% of left-wing stances, having a strong radical left in parliament can be useful as a pressure to remind these parties why people vote for them. Same reason why I hope Die Linke polls high in Germany.

[freek]

Question: what's the 1 "partial result" on the Google map? Overseas territories?

Rotterdam. Polls in the Caribbean are still open.

[nimh]

Is the SP really anti-EU, or just anti-austerity?

They're Eurosceptic, but not anti-EU. They don't want to leave the Euro, like Wilders, though they were against its introduction. They don't want to leave the EU. But they're opposed to delegating any further authorities to Brussels. This sets them apart from the fairly Euro-friendly Labour Party and the passionately Euro-friendly Democrats and Green Left.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Is the SP really anti-EU, or just anti-austerity?

They're Eurosceptic, but not anti-EU. They don't want to leave the Euro, like Wilders, though they were against its introduction. They don't want to leave the EU. But they're opposed to delegating any further authorities to Brussels. This sets them apart from the fairly Euro-friendly Labour Party and the passionately Euro-friendly Democrats and Green Left.

I see. I'm not a fan of these views, but I think the advantages of a strong SP would still outweigh these flaws.

Anyways, VVD leads PvdA by 1.4, so I guess we can call it.

[nimh]

Oh, can someone explain me what happened to GroenLinks ?

... You took the question right out of my mouth, what happened with the GL? we already discussed CDA and PVV.

It's kind of a long story. I answered the same question a month ago on Daily Kos Elections, let me port my answer there over ... mind you, it's long-winded:

A fussin' and a fightin'

On an immediate, shallow level there's just nothing but strife coming out of the party. The election campaign is kicking off but all you hear from the Green Left is individual politicians sniping at each other.

Just last week, for example, two of the current MPs who are not running for reelection spoke out separately. Veteran MP Ineke van Gent revealed that the parliamentary group's coordination body hasn't met for a year and communication has basically broken down. Another retiring MP openly speculated on who the new party leader should be, considering Jolanda Sap's current weak performance.

Last month, there was an actual leadership contest, a vote among party members at large, triggered when a young MP told the media that the fighting spirit and sense of solidarity and companionship within the party had gone and he wanted to bring it back as new leader. The party board initially responded by trying to disallow a leadership vote and publishing internal assessments judging the young MP to be lacking in skills and depth. In terms of publicity, this backfired, especially when it was revealed that the party leadership had made all sitting MPs take IQ tests as part of the assessment of whether they should be on the candidate list again, and those who refused to take them were sidelined. In the end the ballot did take place and Sap easily won with an overwhelming margin, but the damage was done.

How the Green Left tried to follow in Joschka Fischer's footsteps

All of that is just superficial stuff though. The real problem with the Green Left is that it seems to have thoroughly lost its way politically and nobody really knows what they stand for anymore.

Maybe the best way to describe the longer term development (and current decline) of the party is by comparing it with the German Greens. I think it's fair to say that ever since Femke Halsema became party leader in 2002 or 2003 (having come from the Labour Party), or maybe even before under Paul Rosenmoller, the party has tried to emulate the way in which Joschka Fischer transformed the German Greens. It would be silly to presume some grand deliberate plan - in reality, the party also just kind of stumbled from one decision to the other, as all parties do - but as a way of describing the development, if there had been a plan, it would have looked like this:

In the first phase, starting in the late 90s already, the party leadership marginalized those pesky pacifists, socialists and other assorted radicals who made up the core of the Green Left's predecessor parties in the 1980s - the anti-nuke activists, the squatters, the old-time principled socialists. The "fundis", if you will, to use the German terminology. This gradually involved, over the next decade and a half, sidelining internal party democracy and implementing a more top-down approach, culminating in this year's shenanigans.

A follow-up phase involved embracing the Dutch participation in the war in Yugoslavia, and later on accepting its participation and renewed participation in the war in Afghanistan. The decision about Yugoslavia led to a walk-out of the radical pacifist activists, but did not harm the party electorally. The the so-called Kunduz decision, however, in which the party aligned itself with the then-right wing government to approve an extended Dutch participation in Afghanistan, was much more broadly controversial within the party.

Increasingly, starting with Rosenmoller and ever more so under Halsema and Sap, the Green Left focused on proving in every way it could that it was ready to govern: that it was responsible and respectable. Maybe if it had made it in, like the German Greens, it would have acquired a different image, but instead, it came off looking a little desperate at times: the unrequited suitor, ready to do anything to be invited by the big boys.

That said, by the early 2000s, the party had successfully transformed itself from a somewhat chaotic left-radical group into an electorally successful party of the postmaterialist, cultural left. Socio-economic issues were de-emphasized. You voted for the Green Left because you wanted to defend the multicultural society against the insurgent far-right, protect the environment, defend the arts against budget cuts, support European integration, etc. For a while, it changed the party from a coalition of students, intellectuals and unemployed people getting 4% of the vote into a more broadly middle class party of highly-educated liberals getting 8% of the vote.

As someone who had supported the party's decision on Yugoslavia (in fact, that's when I became a member), but who disliked the fact that members seemed to be more agitated by bicycle paths than affordable renting, I didn't like the end result, but it did work for a while.

This was also the time when Halsema floated the notion of the Green Left as a left-liberal or social-liberal party - which to many of the party faithful was outrageous, since it implied a center-left rather than radical-left outlook. Changes in economic policy platforms followed. The party embraced some traditionally right-wing ideas, like making it easier for employers to fire people, though they dressed it up in left-wing sounding rationales (eg, making more space on the labour market for unemployed young people). Soon, the Green Left was profiling itself as a party that embraced the need for innovative economic reforms. It posited itself as more forward looking and modern than the "old-fashioned" Labour Party - again, much like the German Greens did.

This spring, the right-wing government fell, after the Freedom Party withdrew its support. A date for new elections was set, but in the meantime the right-wing liberal VVD and the Christian-Democrats needed new allies to pass the annual budget. In just a day or two, a deal was hammered out with the center-left Democrats 66, the Christian Union ... and the Green Left. The Labour Party was left out of the negotiations, though later the Green Left (rather haughtily, I thought) argued that if Labour had wanted to join once the deal was drafted, it would have been free to.

The so-called Spring Agreement (also sometimes nicknamed "a Kunduz", since it was based on the same parties as those who had OK'd the renewed deployment of Dutch troops to Afghanistan) set out far-reaching economic reforms. They were based on the agreement of all parties that the Netherlands should at all costs meet the EU-set 3% deficit norm. This placed the signatories, including the Green Left, well to the right of - say - Paul Krugman - and to the right of Labour and the Socialists, of course.

The Green Left did not come away empty-handed: some pundits praised Sap's negotiation skills, which got a basically right-wing coalition to embrace a number of environmental policies and an immediate withdrawal of searing cuts to the arts and culture section that had been passed before. But the deal also involved far-reaching entitlements reforms and cuts in social services. Earlier, the Green Left had already agreed with a raise in the retirement age.

Out at sea, adrift in a leaky boat

Where has all this left the party? Ideologically, it now seems to be to the right of the Labour Party. It has proven itself a pragmatic, governance-oriented group of political professionals. But it lacks political coherence, an obvious electorate to appeal to, political allies, an engaged and enthusiastic membership, and ties to social movements outside parliament.

Voters at large are no longer really sure what the party stands for, and feel that even if it nominally stands for something, it'd be willing to ditch whatever it is at the drop of a hat if required for government participation. The party has alienated the other left-wing parties with what has been seen as a somewhat arrogant attitude, especially when contrasted with the party's seemingly endless desire to cozy up to the Democrats 66 and even the Christian-Democrats, and by what was considered a disloyal stance during the Spring Agreement negotiations. With a party leadership that's distrustful of its own members and even its own MPs, internal dynamism in the party is at a minimum. Many of the most committed activists have left in disappointment, and those who remain are more likely to approve the party's further moves to the center.

But there's the crux of the question, and what sets the Green Left apart from the German Greens: the Netherlands already has a center-left, pragmatic, social-liberal party for the highly educated upper middle class. It's called D66, and it's pulling three times as many votes as the Green Left. That's the problem in a nutshell, really. So what's the Green Left for, then?

If you think environmentalist activism is the most important thing, there's always the "Party for the Animals," which looks set to gain another seat. If you want to defend the accomplishments of the welfare state, you can't trust the Green Left and should vote Socialist or perhaps Labour instead. If you're an individualist with culturally liberal views, who believes it's important to stop the far right and spend more on education but doesn't care much about unemployment benefits, you vote D66.

So the Green Left is now a party looking for a reason to exist. Its shrinking electorate seems to have become primarily made up of mid-level civil servants, public service management types and the odd teacher or NGO boss, but they're not rooted in local communities, social movements, unions or other such constituencies the way the Socialist Party is. What is left is basically a bunch of well-meaning policy-making professionals without an electoral constituency, an engaged party organization, a clear ideology, or societal roots - and they don't even like each other! All they do is fight. Why would someone vote for them this year?

[Insula Dei]

NOS-guy just more or less 'called' it for the VVD.

Why do you always have to disappoint, Netherlands?

[nimh]

Yeah, the latest preliminary result has the VVD lead back from 1 to 2, about 100,000 votes...

[You kip if you want to...]

So, a razor-thin, disunited majority for PvdA-SP-D66 or a grand coalition of VVD-PvdA?

[Zanas]

Oh, AND one last thing : nobody calls left-wing a party that is ready to govern with the right, whatever its motives on bloody debt reduction or sh!t may be : you govern with the right, except maybe in time of war or invasion, you're center, so you're right-wing. Period. PvdA is right-wing, SPD is, SPÖ is.

Using the same logic we can state that CDA, VVD, CDU/CSU and ÖVP are left-wing because of their cooperation with social democratic parties :-).

Except that no.

Right-wing parties joining left-wing ones in government has never benefited the working class.
Left-wing parties joining right-wing ones always benefits the dominant class (call it bourgeoisie if you're a marxist), because the left caucuses bring the votes to deploy right-wing policies, never the other way around. I can't think of right-wing parties sincerely joining and giving votes to actually give something to the working class that they took to their class, the rich, except when forced by general strike or some event.

It is just not the same thing.

[nimh]

Labour grandee Felix Rottenberg just told NOS News that a government coalition between PvdA, SP, CDA and D66 is "a really interesting alternative" with "a clear majority".

He warned that the PvdA and VVD are far apart on some crucial questions (eg health care) and he provocatively warned the victorious VVD for the fate which PvdA leader Joop den Uyl suffered: winning the election with an unparalelled score, going into coalition negotiations with too strident demands, and after six months of fighting negotiations, seeing the other main parties quickly make an agreement behind his back.

Is he just playing theatre, trying to soften up the VVD in advance of the negotiations? Is such an alternative coalition really feasible after all, if the VVD and PvdA really can't solve things? Or is Rottenberg just purely talking for himself, since he's more or less retired?

[Хahar 🤔]

Fascinating post, nimh.

[Zanas]

So, a razor-thin, disunited majority for PvdA-SP-D66 or a grand coalition of VVD-PvdA?

Once and for all, and sorry to brutalize you , but SP-PvdA JUST PLAIN WON'T happen. PvdA would rather govern with nearly everybody else than SP (except maybe PVV and SGP, that's all I think), and even more so now that SP is down with 15 seats and they have 39.

You will have a "responsible-serious-black suit-white shirt-black tie-austerity" bullsh*t coalition of VVD-PvdA and any other suppletive that could be foolish enough to go there and be marginalized and ridiculed.