Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: coalition agreement presented

[DC Al Fine]

Having sex with a prostitute whom one knows is a victim of human trafficking will become illegal. A majority of MPs voted for a motion by CU, SP and PvdA to this end.

Your wording intrigues me. Who voted against it?

[DavidB.]

Having sex with a prostitute whom one knows is a victim of human trafficking will become illegal. A majority of MPs voted for a motion by CU, SP and PvdA to this end.

Your wording intrigues me. Who voted against it?

Yeah, did not really know how to formulate it. Have been trying to find out who voted against apart from VVD (LOL, the "tough on crime" party) and PVV, who were mentioned in the news article, but it has not been updated on the parliament's website yet.

[reciprocity]

Having sex with a prostitute whom one knows is a victim of human trafficking will become illegal. A majority of MPs voted for a motion by CU, SP and PvdA to this end.

I am not surprised by VVD. I wonder if D66 voted against it also. They seem like they could.

[DavidB.]

Having sex with a prostitute whom one knows is a victim of human trafficking will become illegal. A majority of MPs voted for a motion by CU, SP and PvdA to this end.

I am not surprised by VVD. I wonder if D66 voted against it also. They seem like they could.

It's online now. VVD, PVV, D66, VNL and 50Plus against. PvdA, SP, CDA, CU, GL, SGP, PvdD and DENK for.

[DavidB.]

Footage of DENK leader Tunahan Kuzu marching in a Grey Wolves demonstration in Rotterdam last year and speaking for this group of protesters has been published on several media. It will only boost his popularity among Turks, but it might shatter some people's naive view of DENK as an "anti-racist" or "left-wing" party for all Dutch people of foreign origin.

[Zinneke]

• With 2 seats and barely any poll numbes, they are irrelevant as a political force.
• The Turkish minority, or any minority do not block vote for a single party
• The media coverage, as well as yours, exposes an underlying biased political coverage

I fail to see either the relevance or interest in this obsession with DENK the NOS and you have. We have a party in Bussels called ISLAM that had a former trainer of child terrorists amongst its ranks. It remains an irrelevant political force not worth the attention that undoubtedly gives it free publicity. But then again their ise suits the black and white world some people seem to live in.

[Dutch Conservative]

• With 2 seats and barely any poll numbes, they are irrelevant as a political force.
• The Turkish minority, or any minority do not block vote for a single party
• The media coverage, as well as yours, exposes an underlying biased political coverage

I fail to see either the relevance or interest in this obsession with DENK the NOS and you have. We have a party in Bussels called ISLAM that had a former trainer of child terrorists amongst its ranks. It remains an irrelevant political force not worth the attention that undoubtedly gives it free publicity. But then again their ise suits the black and white world some people seem to live in.

I agree with this to the extend that I do not think DENK will be a force in Dutch politics. My guess is that when elections will come, the media will make it into a two-party fight (last time: PvdA and VVD). Smaller parties will suffer from it. Max 1 seat for DENK (even that is too much for me, cant stand that Kuzu).

[DavidB.]

• With 2 seats and barely any poll numbes, they are irrelevant as a political force.
• The Turkish minority, or any minority do not block vote for a single party
• The media coverage, as well as yours, exposes an underlying biased political coverage

I fail to see either the relevance or interest in this obsession with DENK the NOS and you have. We have a party in Bussels called ISLAM that had a former trainer of child terrorists amongst its ranks. It remains an irrelevant political force not worth the attention that undoubtedly gives it free publicity. But then again their ise suits the black and white world some people seem to live in.

How is making a few posts on the developments with DENK even remotely an "obsession"? I make posts about the developments within other parties too -- even when it comes to parties that are even less relevant than DENK, such as VNL. Now, perhaps you do not find news on DENK to be interesting, but this party has two parliamentary seats (well, de facto) and it has the potential to win five or even more seats in the upcoming general election. Such political actors can become very relevant, especially given the current political fragmentation, and criticism of some obviously disturbing ideas they have is more than warranted. No one was talking about a "block [sic] vote", so I don't know why you come up with that. As for your last point, I would never pretend to be "objective" when it comes to DENK, because I think it is a potentially dangerous party, even if its participation in the next election will likely only help the right. Lastly, if an MP of, say, VNL would be marching in a demonstration with fascists, you would surely care. Why would Turkish Dutch MPs deserve a free pass for doing so?

[Dutch Conservative]

@ DavidB

What do you think of the course of CDA at this moment? I doubt if Buma has the charisma to become a real alternative for the PM. Too bad, because I think there is still room for a large, center-right/conservative party (like CDA with Lubbers or Balkenende).



(thanks for the message btw, but I cannot send a message back. I'm 'not allowed' it says).

[Zinneke]

• With 2 seats and barely any poll numbes, they are irrelevant as a political force.
• The Turkish minority, or any minority do not block vote for a single party
• The media coverage, as well as yours, exposes an underlying biased political coverage

I fail to see either the relevance or interest in this obsession with DENK the NOS and you have. We have a party in Bussels called ISLAM that had a former trainer of child terrorists amongst its ranks. It remains an irrelevant political force not worth the attention that undoubtedly gives it free publicity. But then again their ise suits the black and white world some people seem to live in.

I agree with this to the extend that I do not think DENK will be a force in Dutch politics. My guess is that when elections will come, the media will make it into a two-party fight (last time: PvdA and VVD). Smaller parties will suffer from it. Max 1 seat for DENK (even that is too much for me, cant stand that Kuzu).

The Dutch Left is too balkanised now for a dual-party american style apparatus. Similarly the PVV's score will undoubtedly go up compared to last time.

[DavidB.]

I think you need to have 20 posts before you can send PMs

As JosepBroz very aptly stated, I am biased, and while I am a right-winger who would definitely be a potential CDA voter if the party chose to pursue a more conservative course, I think Buma has the charisma of Herman van Rompuy as described by Nigel Farage. I would never vote for a CDA with Buma as leader, so this might influence my perspective on this (I liked this article in Dutch). The way I see it is as follows. Electoral competition between right-wing parties is decided in Randstad suburbs and in rural Noord-Brabant areas. In the 2000s they voted CDA, in 2010 they voted VVD with a very large chunk of PVV votes, in 2012 they largely voted VVD. A party that wants to become the largest party on the right and win the election needs to convince these voters. I could be horribly wrong, underestimating how unpopular Rutte is, but I think the great majority of these voters would currently be more inclined to stay with the VVD or walk to Wilders instead of choosing the CDA under boring Buma. They could go to the CDA, but not with Buma (#drafteurlings needs to be a thing imo), and probably not with their current story. That said, the CDA will doubtlessly grow somewhat, just because they're a center-right "alternative" to a rather unpopular VVD-led government. But we cannot really predict the election result since Dutch voters will change their minds countless times before the election anyway.

[Dutch Conservative]

 I think Buma has the charisma of Herman van Rompuy as described by Nigel Farage.

Exactly.  Agree with your analysis. Some regions/city's always vote the same: Utrecht votes D'66, the Biblebelt votes CU/SGP, Limburg votes PVV, Groningen SP/PvdA. The margins are with the voters  in the suburbs in the Randstad. The last election VVD knew how to appeal to these voters. My guess is that they will find a way again, already that party is presententing itself as more rightwing.

The problem for me is: I would like to vote for a traditional party if only they represented me. Now i'm forced into the PVV camp, but they are the only reliable party for key points as pro-Israël, controlled borders, law and order. I think therefor there is a huge potential for a conservative, real center-right people's party like CDA could be (compares to CSU in Bavaria).

[Zinneke]

Exactly.  Agree with your analysis. Some regions/city's always vote the same: Utrecht votes D'66,

Utrecht was a PvdA city until not long ago. I understand why people associate a city like Utrecht with D66 but it really is just left-liberal.

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yes

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Limburg is so electorally balkanised you can't really call it. A map of the 2010 election does indicate its PVV but that was 6 years ago. It still trends heavily towards CDA over time. It recently gave PVV a plurality in its regional election, but the PVV split the vote 50-50 with either the CDA (in the countryside/Sittard) or SP (in Maastricht and Parkstad). In Maastricht it received exactly the same amount of votes as SP for example, but was closely followed by D66 and CDA.

The only thing you can say about Limburg right now is that it will probably not vote for the government parties.

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PvdA have lost the North, and that's one of the reasons I don't see it coming back from this until at least 2-3 elections. The North and urban areas in Limburg and Brabant were their base.

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What I (and I think DavidB does too) find strange is that these voters will probably choose between VVD and D66. I think CDA will have a hard time convincing these people to vote for them.

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The CDA has always had a Christian social wing, and the last time it associated itself with the PVV it suffered an electoral drubbing because the social wing deserted it for allying with Wilders. The CDA can just count of their usual clientelist tactics to amass a solid 15-20%, then hope for a VVD-CDA-D66 right of centre coalition.

There is no market left for the hard, conservative alt-Right. Wilders and the right-wing of the VVD have that tied up.

[DavidB.]

A majority today supported a Cuomo-like initiative by SGP, VVD and ChristenUnie to stop financing organizations that boycott Israel. Apart from these three parties, PVV, CDA, 50Plus and VNL voted for this initiative. However, this will probably turn out to be symbolic, as the government does not have a list of organizations that boycott Israel: according to Foreign Affairs minister Koenders, doing so "falls within the realm of free speech". Together with Denmark, Norway and Germany, the Netherlands is among the primary donors of anti-Israeli NGOs.

The problem for me is: I would like to vote for a traditional party if only they represented me. Now i'm forced into the PVV camp, but they are the only reliable party for key points as pro-Israël, controlled borders, law and order. I think therefor there is a huge potential for a conservative, real center-right people's party like CDA could be (compares to CSU in Bavaria).

I totally agree and find myself in the exact same position, except that I don't think the potential would be "huge". But yes, some potential exists, except that it should be a lot less oriented toward Christianity and traditions than the CSU in order to attract many voters. The Dutch are thoroughly secular.

I basically agree with JosepBroz's last post, except for this:

The CDA has always had a Christian social wing, and the last time it associated itself with the PVV it suffered an electoral drubbing because the social wing deserted it for allying with Wilders. The CDA can just count of their usual clientelist tactics to amass a solid 15-20%, then hope for a VVD-CDA-D66 right of centre coalition. There is no market left for the hard, conservative alt-Right. Wilders and the right-wing of the VVD have that tied up.

The bottom line of this post is true -- the CDA has historically been a centrist/center-right party with a clear and vocal "left", which it didn't lose when the party drifted to the right during the Balkenende years. However, the idea that the party would have lost its left wing in the 2012 election over cooperation with the PVV seems unfounded. If anything, right-wing CDA voters who liked Balkenende in 2010 left the party to vote for the VVD in the two-horse race of 2012. The CDA left does not really have any alternatives and remains a solid force within the party, even after the cooperation with the PVV. This cooperation is widely seen as a mistake within the party, but more so among the more left-wing party members than among much of the CDA electorate. Still, renewed cooperation with the PVV seems highly unlikely and this is the main reason why the PVV will not engage in government cooperation after the next election -- neither outside the government, like last time, nor inside.

But yes, I entirely agree with the "prediction" that the CDA will get around 15% of the vote and end up in a VVD-D66-CDA-led government.

Last point, but this is perhaps more of a semantic nature: the PVV is hardly "alt right". Alt rightists, to the extent that they even exist in the Netherlands, think the PVV is too "Jewish". Also, the point was that right-wing, conservative voters don't necessarily feel at home with the VVD and with the PVV. Working-class areas like Spijkenisse will continue to vote PVV no matter what, but (lower) middle-class Vinex neighborhoods, the ones that trended VVD in the last election and will likely go PVV in the next election, could easily vote for a more conservative CDA. In order to turn to the right and attract such voters, however, the CDA would have to lose its left-wing members, which is highly unlikely.

[Dutch Conservative]

What will be the consequences of the Brexit in the Netherlands? My view:
- on the short term: nothing will happen as PVV and SP are nowhere near a majority and the constitution doesnt allow a referendum on settled law.
- as for the elections in 2017: the EU will probably be a major subject, but the main parties will stick by a 'more effecient, cheaper, more democracy, etc' kind of message with no hard promises or measures. Because the dutch electorate tends to go for the middle, VVD and D'66 will profit.
- on laws regarding more power to Europe or new memberstates a referendum will be held each time for years to come, so that will restrain the government and limit the plans of guys like Verhofstad and Schultz.
- Conclusion: untill the next giant economic collapse (I think in the not to distant future) nothing will happen. Chances of a nexit are very small.

[DavidB.]

I'm sorry for having been silent this long. I was on a long holiday.

So what happened during the summer?
- Surprise, surprise: nothing has yet been done with the referendum result.
- Not much has changed in the polls. The last Peilingwijzer looks as follows:



- A PvdA leadership election will take place before the next election, which is scheduled on March 15, 2017 (although there has been some speculation that the coalition will collapse in order to provide an opportunity for both parties to avert a seemingly inevitable electoral blow, we should still assume the next election is going to take place only then). The leadership election will take place between November 24 and December 8. Diederik Samsom, current PvdA leader, will seek to be nominated again. There were rumors about popular Rotterdam mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb contesting in the election, but he declined and will not be a candidate. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Interior Lodewijk Asscher, who is clearly on the right of the party, will decide on his political future in October. Candidates for the leadership election can apply until October 7. It is hard to tell who would win a race between Samsom and Asscher. The latter would probably be slightly more popular in the general election (not that it matters much, at this point), but that doesn't necessarily influence the "primary", as we all know...
- Since the Turkish coup, there has been much tension between Turkish communities in the Netherlands, specifically between pro-Gülen communities and pro-Erdogan/Diyanet communities. This has occasionally led to violent incidents and intimidation. Only today, a prominent Gülen supporter in the Netherlands called for the deportation of most Diyanet imams in the Netherlands on the front page of tabloid Algemeen Dagblad. That is obviously not going to happen, but this issue will likely remain relevant.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Holidays should always come before politics imo, so that's sensible.

[mvd10]

https://d66.nl/content/uploads/sites/2/2016/04/Tijdpad-Tweede-Kamerverkiezing-2017-Verkiezingsprogramma.pdf

According to this schedule D66 will release a draft of their 2017 election platform tomorrow. D66 has become a lot more right wing on economic issues the past few years, so I wonder what their platform will be like.

http://www.bnr.nl/nieuws/politiek/10309553/vvd-schuift-met-nieuw-verkiezingsprogramma-richting-pvv

The VVD platform will focus on security and restricting immigration. Bruijn (the platform writer) says people worry whether the Netherlands will stay the Netherlands and whether civil rights (LGBT rights, free speech) will be protected. He also says that while we should help real refugees with no other place to go, we shouldn't cram the Netherlands with hopeless economic refugees.

The VVD will also work on improving living conditions for the elderly. You wouldn't expect something like this being a priority to the VVD, but Wilders loves to accuse the coalition of neglecting the elderly while sending billions to southern Europe, so the VVD probably hopes to win PVV voters this way.

EDIT:

Apparently the draft version of the D66 platform will be released next week:

https://d66.nl/content/uploads/sites/2/2016/04/Tijdpad-Tweede-Kamerverkiezing-2017-Verkiezingsprogramma-Extern.pdf

[mvd10]

http://nos.nl/artikel/2128155-pvv-presenteert-programma-alle-azc-s-dicht.html

The PVV just released a draft version of their manifesto:

1. No more refugees, no more immigrants from Islamic countries, close all Islamic schools, close all mosques, ban the Quran
2. Nexit
3. More direct democracy
4. Eliminate health insurance copays
5. Lower rents
6. Lower the retirement age to 65
7. Eliminate subsidies for innovation, art and wind turbines, eliminate all development aid spending, cut all NOS (the public broadcaster) funding
8. Roll back some healthcare cuts
9. More defense and police spending
10. Cut income taxes by 3 billion (roughly 0.5% of GDP, so it will be a fairly small tax cut)
11. Cut vehicle excise duty

Pathetic. I can understand the reasoning behind closing Islamic schools, but banning the Quran and closing all mosques? Wtf? Lowering the retirement age, more rent controls and eliminating health insurance copays are all terrible ideas too.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I suppose the PVV know that they're not exactly going to need to form a coalition or anything, an account of being toxic; so they might as well go fully loopy.

[DavidB.]

Pathetic. I can understand the reasoning behind closing Islamic schools, but banning the Quran and closing all Mosques? Wtf? Lowering the retirement age, more rent controls and eliminating health insurance copays are all terrible ideas too.

It's bad, but it's nothing new -- they've been saying this for years. The Qur'an ban was already in their 2012 election manifesto, and they have advocated closing all mosques since 2014. I don't really understand your surprise.

[DavidB.]

The next two posts (which I can apparently not post at once due to the limit of 11000 characters per post) discusses parties' current situation, well before the start of the general election campaign.

Dutch voters are notoriously volatile. A lot will happen before the election, and a lot of voters will end up voting differently than they now tell pollsters. Moreover, it is not clear whether the coalition will actually last until the end. If the coalition collapses before March, this will of course influence the campaign and people's opinion of both government parties. In sum, there is a lot we don't know. Still, it makes sense to discuss the parties' positions at this point, before the start of the campaign but well at the end of this government's tenure.

VVD: While the party will undoubtedly lose seats due to the government's unpopularity, the VVD's position is actually not as bad as it looks. A big seat loss looks inevitable, but if I had to place a bet on which party will end up the largest, I would say it is going to be the VVD again (it could also be the PVV, but I still think it's just not actually going to happen). The VVD should do everything to ensure the government will last, because that will look very good on the VVD and PM Mark Rutte. Many center-right Dutch people find stability important. It is these people that gave the VVD the election victory in the Provincial elections in 2015, and despite disagreements with certain government policies, they are likely to vote for the VVD in the general election too. Mark Rutte is great at campaigning. He will nevertheless face an uphill battle: people have not forgotten all of his broken promises (1000 euros for every working family, no new Greek bailout, no more transfer of sovereignty to Brussels, etc...) of the 2012 campaign and there are many voters who voted for the VVD in 2012 yet will definitely not vote for them in 2017; most of them will opt for the PVV. Again, the VVD is likely to have a very right-wing campaign in which as many VVD-PVV swing voters will be convinced that the VVD is tough enough. This will be much harder than in 2012, and the VVD will be attacked by D66 leader Pechtold for it, which may cause the VVD to lose higher educated high-income voters. But the party's floor is very high. If Wilders blows it, the VVD may very well come 1st again, allowing Rutte to form a new government.

PvdA: There's no denying that the PvdA are in dire straits. PvdA leader Diederik Samsom seems to be tone deaf: he keeps talking about the achievements of the government while not understanding that most left-wingers and most PvdA 2012 voters hate this government. He is being honest, but honesty doesn't work if people don't like what you say. It remains to be seen whether he will win his primary. Lodewijk Asscher and Ahmed Aboutaleb would be best placed to minimize the scope of the seat loss in the general election, but Aboutaleb already announced not to run and if Asscher is smart, he should also not do it (but I don't know if he is). The PvdA is going to lose at least 15 seats (they won 38/150 in 2012). Regardless of how complicated coalition formation is going to be, they will need a stint in opposition to do some soul-searching. For the party, it would probably be the best if Samson runs in the election and is dumped afterwards. It makes no sense to elect Asscher, have him lose a lot of seats and lose him too. Another issue with Asscher is that he is on the right of his party and probably even more out of touch with the average potential PvdA voter than Samsom. As Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Interior of Social Affairs, he is also deeply attached to and responsible for the current government's policies.

PVV: This is really the wildcard of the election. If Wilders is smart, he could end up leading the first radical right-wing party to become the largest in Western Europe in a first-order election, which is no small feat. But the PVV generally aren't strong campaigners. Wilders participates in the tv debates, but the party has no ground game due to the fact that it doesn't even have any members (apart from Wilders and the "Foundation for Friends of the PVV", of which the chairman is... Geert Wilders). If he doesn't make statements that are considered too extreme, he may win a lot of votes. But with Wilders you never know. The main message of the campaign is also important. In 2012, the PVV went on and on about the EU, but this was not a prominent theme in the campaign, which was mainly about the economy; in that way, Wilders made himself irrelevant. The party would be wise not to make the same mistake again. It seems security issues will be the main theme in this campaign. Of course, Wilders should do better here. The more seats the PVV win, the more difficult government formation is going to be, the more parties will have to be included in the government, and the more of a field day the PVV will have in opposition.

SP: When the main Social Democratic party of a country is part of an extremely unpopular coalition with the main right-wing party, and the coalition's policies are largely about "reforming" the economy, the main socialist party to the left of the Social Democratic should do absolutely great. All the preconditions for an SP all-time high exist. But it's not going to happen, and it's their own fault. Before the 2012 election, the SP skyrocketed in the polls -- but then party leader Emile Roemer bombed during the debates, coming off as a friendly provincial uncle who is a nice person but doesn't know anything about the 'important figures'  and cannot be trusted to lead the country. Whether justified or not, he never got rid of this image and should have been dumped after the disappointing 2012 election result. Since the SP is about as democratic as the GDR, this didn't happen, and the SP's performance in opposition can be qualified as lackluster at best. One exception: Foreign Affairs spokesman Harry van Bommel led a convincing SP campaign in the Ukraine referendum. Unfortunately for the SP, Van Bommel will retire as an MP to do something for some non-profit international organization. So the SP will likely end up with about as many seats as in 2012 (15), and possibly even fewer. Talk about missing opportunities.

[DavidB.]

CDA: The Christian Democrats suffered terribly in the last election, ending up at 13 seats, a clear all-time low. Contrary to popular belief among non-Dutch politics spergs, the CDA participating in the failed minority government supported by the PVV was not (or only to a very small extent) the reason of this loss, since the CDA left did not abandon the party in the election. The CDA mainly lost another chunk of voters to the VVD; some of whom were sympathetic to PM Balkenende and therefore voted for him in 2010, but did not want the PvdA to become the largest party in the 2012 two-horse race with the VVD. Their current level of support is somewhat higher than in the 2012 election, mainly because of the fact that tactical VVD voters have returned to the nest, but it is clear that Sybrand Buma is not one to make the CDA Great Again. It is also not clear whether this person exists at all. The CDA should improve on their 2012 performance and will be part of the next government. Expectations don't seem to be high anymore. The same goes for the energy.

D66: The social liberals surprised with their concept election manifesto, in which they announced that it will be a priority for them to make sure that young people get a permanent contract. This goes against their former policy according to which the "flexibilization of the labor market" is both a desirable and inevitable consequence of modernity and globalization. This flexibilization, however, is not popular with actual young people, who go from internship to temporary low-paid job to another internship. (While often forgotten, it is good to note that this is generally much more relevant for the highly educated than for others, but these are of course the people D66 are catering to). It seems D66 is prioritizing being a party for the young than being a party that wants to make everything even more flexible. Apart from that, D66 will come up with a relatively right-wing economic program combined with progressive views on immaterial issues (such as the legalization of MDMA/XTC, which is already used extremely liberally at many parties). For D66 leader Alexander Pechtold, this should be the last election: there is starting to be more criticism internally on the way he has become so important for D66. Regardless, D66 voters will be just fine with Pechtold and his rebuttals of Wilders' one-liners. In that regard, not much has changed compared to 2010. D66 will likely be a part of the next government. It appears Pechtold cannot wait to govern with the VVD and the CDA.

ChristenUnie: The ChristenUnie replaced their former boring leader Arie Slob with a guy who may be just as boring, Gert-Jan Segers (tbh I had to Google his name, that's how unremarkable he is). CU are not the party to say extreme things or have an extremely different election result. As a constructive party, CU may be a part of the next government if the formation process is going to be difficult, but supporting a minority government from the outside would also be an option.

GroenLinks: Terrible result in 2012, but on track for an absolutely great result -- perhaps the best ever -- in 2017. New, young leader Jesse Klaver is popular and is currently the star of the Dutch left. A Justin Trudeau lookalike (and he knows it, imitating him), Klaver is a good-looking guy who has been a GL MP for a while and wrote a book about "economism", which would be the tendency in politics to only take interest in figures and numbers instead of looking at people's needs and wants. Klaver advocates looking at issues in a less "economic" way. I don't think any of these ideas are new, but Klaver sells them as such and he is certainly good at promoting them. Many disappointed PvdA 2012 voters will end up voting for GL this time. Still, it is not clear whether Klaver will be good enough during the telly debates. Criticizing Samsom's record may be easy, but Alexander Pechtold may be a lot harder to debate. GL will be positioning themselves as most "humanist" party. Klaver already echoed Merkel's "Wir schaffen das" comment in Dutch; GL will call for taking in many more migrants.

SGP: Kees van der Staaij, who comes across as a nice and reasonable person even for those who disagree with him, is a master at getting media attention for views that the SGP has been espousing for decades. SGP billboards protesting adultery appeared along Dutch highways. The party is gaining traction among both Catholics, who think the CDA isn't conservative enough anymore, and a select group of secular conservatives, who lament the CDA's supposed leftism and the PVV's secularism. Meanwhile, birth rates among Dutch Reformed protestants remain high. Maintaining the party's current 3 seats seems realistic; winning 4 would be special, but could very well happen.

PvdD: Not much has changed in the PvdD's "act", but they have certainly become more popular. Animal Parties will always remain niche parties, but the PvdD should be able to improve on their 2012 performance -- if Jesse Klaver doesn't end up stealing the show and ruining it for them.

50Plus: Egotistical olds don't care about the dumpster fire this party is internally. Probably going to win 2-3 seats again.

Relevant split-offs that will contest in the next election:

VNL: Two-man split-off from the PVV, running a supposedly classical liberal party. The focus on security hurts their chances to win seats in the next election, because they will likely not be able to sufficiently distinguish themselves from the PVV (as opposed to economic issues). Bontes and Van Klaveren's dream is likely going to die.

DENK: Two-man split-off from the PvdA. As opposed to VNL, Kuzu and Ozturk have a very real chance of getting elected. Polarization between Turks and Dutch is beneficial for them, because it may help at maxing out the Turkish vote. I wouldn't be surprised if DENK turns out to be the single most popular party among Turkish-Dutch voters. One or two seats should be in the pocket. More may or may not happen, depending on the circumstances (such as a virtually big PVV late in the campaign).

Again, it is highly relevant to note that a lot can and will change. Tactical voting might change the picture altogether for some of the parties. But these are the situations in which the parties find themselves for now.

[mvd10]

Pathetic. I can understand the reasoning behind closing Islamic schools, but banning the Quran and closing all Mosques? Wtf? Lowering the retirement age, more rent controls and eliminating health insurance copays are all terrible ideas too.

It's bad, but it's nothing new -- they've been saying this for years. The Qur'an ban was already in their 2012 election manifesto, and they have advocated closing all mosques since 2014. I don't really understand your surprise.

You're right. I don't know how I missed that. I always thought they only wanted a ban on building new mosques.

D66 wants to make sure everyone can get a permanent contract, but they also want to make it easier to fire people, so it's not like they suddenly oppose a flexible labour market.

Asscher is the Minister of Social affairs btw.

[DavidB.]

You're right, Plasterk's of course at the Interior. Asscher being at Social Affairs makes it even worse for the PvdA and for himself, come to think of it.