Dutch general election - September 2012

[Diouf]

Is there any indication that the Dutch pollsters have become better at predicting the number of PVV voters? At the last election they were also predicted to get around 16-17 seats, but then on election day they actually got 24. The same thing happened in Denmark for a couple of years where the Danish People's Party constantly overperformed their polls. The Danish pollsters have only just managed to adjust to this in the last 2-3 years. The reasons mentioned for DPP underperforming in the polls have been that their voters are somewhat less interested in politics, and therefore does not want to participate in polls, and the fact that DPP were/are quite stigmatized by the media and some of the traditional parties (f.x. the SD prime minister calling them not house-trained), so their voters would be reluctant to support them when asked by a pollster. I guess these reasons could apply to PVV as well.

[Diouf]

I don't see how they could place the PVV so close to the center of the axis ! :-O

Their 2006 rating where it was the rightmost party seems more faithful to me, unless there has been a real shift of this party's ideology since then that I'm unaware of ? I mean, how could PVV be rated as more left-wing than D66 ? O_o'

Well, I understand the horisontal as mainly economic questions, and then it makes some sense. I know that PVV used to have quite liberal economic policies, but Wilders took down the government because PVV didn't accept the austerity measures that the government wanted to do in order to reduce the deficit. So that would probably place PVV economically more to the left than VVD and CDA. And if D66 is like most social liberal parties, then it's looks plausible that they are quite right wing on economic questions and wants tax cuts and deficit reduction. I did think that CU would be quite more left wing on economy, but according to the maps they have moved quite a bit towards the right.

The vertical axis, however, seems a bit strange because they have tried fitting in EU, ethics and immigration on the same axis. I don't think you could say that parties in favour of EU are progressive, and those against are conservative. For instance some left wing parties are opposed to the EU because of the economic policy EU encourage, the agricultural subsidies etc.
But since they use EU as parameter, i would have expected PVV to be near the bottom as they would be placed there on both EU and immigration, but i guess that their fairly liberal attitude to things like equality and homosexuality, on which the religious parties might be way more conservative, places them surprisingly high.

[Diouf]

PvdA doing well isn't necessarily bad for Roemer though, is it?

Not necessarily, but it does mean that PvdA could form a coalition without the SP. Not that it's very likely, but different shapes of the Paars Plus/Purple Plus is available with those poll numbers. VVD + PvdA + D66 + CU and/or GL. But I guess that neither VVD nor PvdA would do Purple since they will most likely lose votes to SP and PVV with such a coalition. PVV would attack VVD on immigration policy, and the SP will attack PvdA over the economic policy.

The most likely still looks like a centre-left coalition. Such a coalition will probably be SP + PvdA + some of CDA, D66, CU, GL. One or more of those parties could be supporting parties instead of government parties.

If PvdA passes SP in the polls, then of course Emile Roemer is probably not the logical PM anymore.

[Diouf]

In addition to the televised debates, it is suggested that the calculations made by the Centraal Planbureau(CPB) has hurt SP severely. The CPB is the Dutch Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, and it analyzed the impact on the economy that each party's programme would have. The analysis suggests that the SP plan will mean 250.000 jobs less in 2040; mainly due to the worsening of the business climate as I understand it. CPB is a part of the ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation, but is fully independent as far as the contents of its work are concerned according to their website.

The biggest Dutch newspaper de Telegraaf had this "loss of 250.000 job" story at their front page that critized the SP quite a lot.

[Diouf]

Is it going to be possible for there to be any government that does not include both VVD AND PvdA? or is some sort of "grand coalition" almost inevitable?

A centre-left or left government is still possible based on most of the polls. This would be PvdA + SP + at least two out of D66, CDA, CU and GL. Not all of those parties would necessarily be a part of the government; some/one could be supporting party.

I can not really imagine anything other than a "grand coalition" if the VVD is to be involved; a Kunduz coalition would require a swing of at least 5-6 seats.

[Diouf]

Is it going to be possible for there to be any government that does not include both VVD AND PvdA? or is some sort of "grand coalition" almost inevitable?

A centre-left or left government is still possible based on most of the polls. This would be PvdA + SP + at least two out of D66, CDA, CU and GL. Not all of those parties would necessarily be a part of the government; some/one could be supporting party.

Is there any evidence that any of those parties (except maybe GL) would want to work with SP, though?

D66 has said that it is not excluding any party from the talks, but added that the chance of them forming a coalition with SP is "almost zero". CDA has said that it wouldn't help the left wing to a majority. CU has attacked SP + PvdA for not taking responsibility in the budget negotiations, but I haven't seen them ruling out a cooperation with those two parties; it will probably be even more difficult for them to work with the social liberal D66. GL is pretty positive towards the SP and a so-called progressive coalition.

Emile Roemer himself said that he preferred coalition with PvdA, GL and PvdD. He added that the party could work with D66 on culture and education, but had big disagreements with them on Europe and the labour market.

So coalition negotiations on such a centre-left or left government will indeed be difficult.

[Diouf]

So this election seem like it turned quite presidential. I reckon that many voters saw that it would certainly be a purple government, so they wanted to decide whether Rutte or Samsom should become prime minister

[Diouf]

Ooooh ... talking of the Green Left, they just got a fourth seat! Latest calculation, taking into account the "lijstverbinding" between PvdA, GL and SP, gives GL an extra seat and the PvdA a seat less (so 38).

What's the "lijstverbinding" ? Is it some kind of list linking within coalitions ? I thought the Dutch system was absolute PR.

It's an electoral alliance between parties to avoid wasting votes. So when seats are distributed via PR, PvdA, GL, and SP are seen as one bloc, and then afterwards the bloc's seats are distributed proportionally between the three parties. But the internal distribution in the block happens through the  largest remainder method instead of the regular D'Hondt method. This method favours the smaller parties, which is probably why GL has won one seat from PvdA.

CU and SGP also had an electoral alliance.

[Diouf]

De Hond made a poll where they asked people whether they voted tactically, and if they did what party they would have voted for originally. So they calulated how the result would have looked without tactical voting:

VVD 34 (-7)
PvdA 26 (-12)
SP 23 (+8)
PVV 18 (+3)
CDA 15 (+2)
D66 14 (+2)
CU 6 (+1)
GL 5 (+1)
SGP 3 (0)
PvdD 3 (+1)
50PLUS 3 (+1)