Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: Rutte III era

[DavidB.]

Peil.nl poll the same as last week.

32% want the coalition to win a majority in the Senate next year following the Provincial elections, 54% want the government to lose its one-seat majority. These numbers are 44/37 for CDA voters in GE17 and 43/42 for D66 voters - very damning. Only VVD voters overwhelmingly want the government to win a majority: 75/15.

As for Wilders' "draw Mohammed" cartoon contest which sparked outrage in the Muslim world and was subsequently cancelled: 65% think Wilders should not want to organize such a contest, 22% are disappointed he cancelled it, 76% think this was a good decision and 61% think organizing such a contest should be possible in the Netherlands.

Peil.nl also polled the popularity of all ministers. The most notable observation is that PM Rutte's popularity has declined by a lot: from 4th out of 16 ministers in October 2017 to 15th out of 16 at the moment. His personal involvement in the abolishment of the dividend tax is undoubtedly the reason for this.

[DavidB.]

Much ado about asylum policy as of late, since two Armenian children aged 13 and 12 who had been here for ten years were set to be deported to Yerevan. Their mother had already been deported. Their asylum bid had been rejected countless times, since Armenia is a safe country, but Dutch asylum legislation allows applicants to appeal countless times, with the consequence that children are sometimes deported after having lived in the Netherlands for most of their lives. There were many protests for the two children, but first it appeared as if this would not change anything. When the mother (who has pulled many tricks in the background) then made her children disappear on the night before their deportation (they went "into hiding") and the police asked for citizens to help find them (bad idea), Deputy Minister of Immigration Mark Harbers (VVD) decided to use his discretionary powers and make an exception for the two children. This also means their mother will be allowed to return, even though her asylum application was rejected something like eight times. Presumably CU and D66 exerted a lot of pressure on the VVD in order to have Harbers use his discretionary powers, as many members of these two pro-immigration parties cancelled their memberships over this incident. It painfully points at the fact that D66 and CU lost the immigration issue at the negotiating table.

The government parties don't trust each other at all, as D66, CDA and CU keep struggling with the expected abolishment of the dividend tax: for the former two parties, as many as 40% of their voters in 2017 say they doubt they can vote for them again if the dividend tax is actually abolished. As energy prices, healthcare expenses and the VAT will increase sharply next year, the scrapping of the dividend tax for Unilever and Shell seems an even more obscene measure - the optics are really bad.

Embarrassingly, because of this intra-government disagreement, the government agreed on the 2019 budget too late and missed the deadline to have everything calcultated by the Council of State. The Deputy Head of the Council, former minister Piet-Hein Donner (CDA), took the highly unusual step to summon the Deputy Minister of Finance Menno Snel (D66) to his office and have him explain why this happened. In order to maintain its independence and avoid being viewed as partisan, the Council of State can only be in contact with government officials through a special procedure ("Article 24"). This procedure is usually only invoked for about 1% of the budgetary clauses, but was invoked for much more of the budget this time.

I would not be surprised if the government collapsed over the dividend tax, either this year or next year.

Another scandal that has hurt D66 is the fact that Alexander Pechtold's former mistress, who just resigned as a D66 local councillor in Kampen, told the press that Pechtold had essentially forced her to undergo an abortion, treated her badly altogether and blackmailed her over things, threatening to destroy her reputation and her political career. Pechtold has had his fair number of scandals (the "penthouse" he received from a Canadian diplomat keeps sticking too) and D66 fear that this most recent scandal is going to hurt them in the Provincial elections in March. There is speculation about Pechtold resigning at the October party congress. The question is: who would replace him? Minister of the Interior Kajsa Ollongren was always seen as the most likely successor, but her reputation is very tainted after abolishing the referendum, which many D66 members do not like.

Then finally a poll not by Peil: EenVandaag have ditched their cooperation with GfK/De Stemming, which was the worst poll in the 2017 general election, and now have their polls conducted by Ipsos, the best pollster in 2017.

Ipsos/EenVandaag (September 4, numbers compared to GE):
VVD 32 (-1)
PVV 18 (-2)
CDA 17 (-2)
GroenLinks 16 (+2)
SP 14 (nc)
D66 13 (-6)
Forum voor Democratie 9 (+7)
PvdA 8 (-1)
PvdD 7 (+2)
ChristenUnie 6 (+1)
50Plus 5 (+1)
SGP 3 (nc)
DENK 2 (-1)

A very different picture than with Peil, which has CDA and VVD much lower and FVD (and DENK) much higher. Peil wasn't all that inaccurate in 2017 either, so I guess the truth is somewhere in between.

[DavidB.]

How are dividends taxed in the Netherlands currently and what is the proposed tax cut?

It is now 15% and the government plans to abolish it altogether (Rutte's personal project), even though this was in none of the parties' manifesto. The parties have severely underestimated the backlash this would cause: as it became clear Shell and Unilever were behind this and Rutte used the "we need to attract them after Brexit" argument, the companies themselves are mainly worried about the PR damage and have now said they will move to the Netherlands regardless of whether the dividend tax is abolished. There goes that line of defense for Rutte... It is still wholly unclear how this would benefit the Netherlands - one gets the impression that it doesn't. Meanwhile, it will cost 2 billion euros a year.

[DavidB.]

This is mvd10's area of interest, so he should feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood it as follows: shareholders who receive dividend from a company based in the Netherlands officially pay 15% over this dividend, regardless of whether these shareholders are based here. Those shareholders who live in the Netherlands, however, already paid 0% in practice, as they were allowed to make some calculation with the income tax (the same goes for shareholders from a number of countries with which the Netherlands has tax treaties). Shareholders who live outside the Netherlands and outside a country with which the Netherlands has such an agreement did have to pay 15%, which will not be the case anymore from next year onwards if the government actually abolishes the dividend tax.

[DavidB.]

Peil.nl today (compared to last week):

VVD 26 (-1)
GroenLinks 18 (+1)
Forum voor Democratie 16 (nc)
PVV 15 (-1)
SP 13 (+1)
PvdA 12 (nc)
CDA 11 (nc)
D66 10 (-1)
PvdD 8 (nc)
DENK 7 (+1)
ChristenUnie 6 (nc)
50Plus 5 (nc)
SGP 3 (nc)

Ipsos looks more believable to me...

Only 34% want the government to finish its term compared to 50% when they assumed office. 78% of VVD voters want the government to stay in power until 2021, but among all other government parties a majority of 2017 GE voters think the government should collapse beforehand: only 47% of CDA voters, 45% of D66 voters and 38% of CU voters want the government to complete its term.

47% think Deputy Minister of Immigration Harbers (VVD) made the right decision to allow the two Armenian children to stay, 46% think he made the wrong decision. Big majorities of VVD (26/66), CDA (38/55), FVD (18/73) and PVV (18/77) think Harbers made the wrong decision, but majorities of voters of other parties agree with his decision.

39% want to soften immigration legislation so that more children of asylum seekers will be allowed to stay in the Netherlands, 53% do not support such changes. Clear differences within the government here: 67% of D66 voters want to soften immigration legislation, but only 19% of VVD voters and 23% of CDA voters would support this.

[DavidB.]

... and suddenly we get a lot of polls: here is I&O, one of the worst pollsters in 2017.

September 15 (compared to GE17)

VVD 26 (-7)
GroenLinks 19 (+5)
PVV 15 (-5)
CDA 15 (-4)
SP 14 (nc)
D66 13 (-6)
Forum voor Democratie 12 (+10)
PvdA 11 (+2)
ChristenUnie 7 (+2)
PvdD 6 (+1)
50Plus 5 (+1)
SGP 4 (+1)
DENK 3 (nc)

Poll looks quite believable, somewhere between Ipsos (which overpolls the "bourgeois right", underpolls left + "populists") and Peil (overpolls FVD and some small parties, underpolls "bourgeois right"); though I&O tend to overpoll the combined left. Anyway, what a mess this is.

40% would approve of Rutte-III, 56% disapprove. 64% oppose the abolishment of the dividend tax. Carola Schouten (CU, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Agriculture) is the most popular minister. Klaas Dijkhoff (VVD) and Gert-Jan Segers (CU) are the most popular parliamentary group leaders. The four least popular ministers are all in the VVD. In descending order of popularity: Mark Rutte (PM), Eric Wiebes (Economic Affairs), Sander Dekker (Legal Protection) and Stef Blok (Foreign Affairs).

[DavidB.]

The third Tuesday of September is always the day on which the budget is presented. The King makes a tour through the center of The Hague and makes a speech; in the days afterwards, the budget is discussed in parliament in the annual General Political Reflections, which is the high point of the parliamentary year.

The generally unpopular government has a fragile position, but the opposition is divided, with the untouchable PVV as the only opposition party with more than 10% of the seats. The approach most opposition parties took was therefore to inflict as much damage on Rutte and the government as possible. The weak spot of the government is the proposed abolishment of the dividend tax, which was alluded to countless times in opposition politicians' speeches. At the same time, the government parties need to be more clear about their profile, which is presumably part of the reason why VVD parliamentary group leader Klaas Dijkhoff introduced the idea of importing Denmark's integration laws to the Netherlands. Jesse Klaver (GL) also interpreted this as a trick to avoid talking about the scrapping of the dividend tax, which might also be true. The level of parliamentary debate reached a new low, with predictable Wilders/Kuzu and Wilders/Pechtold clashes receiving much attention, but in terms of content not many new things were discussed. To me, a high point of the debate was the poem with which Thierry Baudet started his speech, but given that he was the 13th speaker, most MPs had presumably tuned out on the debate already. On the left it was notable that GL, SP and PvdA once again managed to overcome their differences and present a common budget as a "counterproposal" to the government's budget.

The debates will continue tomorrow, when PM Rutte has returned from Brussels, and will presumably continue to receive loads of criticism for the dividend tax proposal - especially now that the Council of State has issued a highly negative advise on this proposal, claiming not enough attention was drawn to the many critiques of economists who found that the measure will not have any positive effect on the Dutch economy. To be continued.

[DavidB.]

Peil.nl poll following the General Political Reflections:

VVD 26 (nc)
GroenLinks 18 (nc)
PVV 17 (+2)
Forum voor Democratie 14 (-2)
PvdA 13 (+1)
SP 12 (-1)
CDA 11 (nc)
D66 10 (nc)
PvdD 8 (nc)
DENK 7 (nc)
ChristenUnie 6 (nc)
50Plus 5 (nc)
SGP 3 (nc)

PVV win 2 seats directly from FVD. In all his vulgarity, Wilders was at his best, while Baudet's performance was generally seen as unconvincing. He particularly received much criticism for the part where he said participating in these debates is "below his dignity", as he thinks parliamentary debates are not meaningful because everything has been set in stone in the coalition agreement, nobody is open to being convinced with arguments, and the debates only serve to achieve popularity through one-liners at the 8 o'clock news. He has expressed similar sentiments before and I get where he comes from, but the public don't seem to like it.

Peil.nl found that Wilders (19%) and Asscher (19%) were seen as the best opposition leaders in the debates, followed by Klaver (16%) and Baudet (8%). 29% said "nobody in particular" stood out. For the coalition parties, 25% said VVD leader Dijkhoff was the best parliamentary group leader (44%: "nobody in particular").

81% support Dijkhoff's proposal to force children aged 2 to 2.5 into special language schools if they don't speak Dutch; 65% think children in problematic neighborhoods should receive special education on Dutch democratic values and traditions; yet only 21% support punishing crimes perpetrated in problematic neighborhoods with a sentence twice as high as in other neighborhoods.

39% support Wilders' measures to ban all public displays of Islam, 50% oppose it. Still a high number in support, considering that the question even included a ban on the Qur'an, something I would assume is supported by fewer people. But perhaps many people were still inclined to say yes to the entire package.

The alternative budget presented by the left (GL, SP, PvdA) is generally viewed positively: 57% say their proposal is better than the government's proposal, 75% like the general idea of opposition parties introducing an alternative budget, and only 35% think this budget would stymie economic growth. However, 54% think these parties would not have introduced this budget if they were actually in the government, and - painfully yet inevitably - 62% agree with the statement "when I see this alternative budget, I wonder why the PvdA continued governing with the VVD." 89% of SP voters, 86% of PvdD voters, 72% of GL voters and even 45% of PvdA-2017 voters agree with this statement.

[DavidB.]

The government intends to introduce a proposal that requires people who want a firearm permit to disclose information on their race/ethnicity, religious beliefs, and political views, Minister of Justice and Security Ferdinand Grapperhaus (CDA) declared. The initiative was immediately criticized heavily by the Council of State, privacy-oriented NGOs, and MPs of coalition parties CDA and D66.

Collecting this type of information remains a highly sensitive subject in the Netherlands, where the highest percentage of Jews in all of Western Europe was deported in the Holocaust, largely due to the excellent administration with detailed information on citizens' background. I think it would be the first time after WW2 that the government would collect this sort of information (attempts at organizing a census failed) and it seems obvious that this is not actually going to happen.

[DavidB.]

The Unilever decision is extremely embarrassing to the government and may provide D66 and CU with the argument necessary to cancel the move altogether. Since D66 and CU received some climate stuff to accept the abolishment of the dividend tax, we can only hope this part will now be cancelled too, which would be fair for VVD and CDA

Today the D66 party conference takes place and there is a lot of turmoil within the party, with suggestions that Alexander Pechtold would resign.

[DavidB.]

Aaaand he's gone. This doesn't bode well for the coalition either.

[DavidB.]

Aaaand he's gone. This doesn't bode well for the coalition either.

Who are most likely successors? I guess some of the ministers? Ollongren, Kaag, van Veldhoven? They also have some fairly notable MEPs (in ‘t Veld and Schaake), where I believe the former just won a tough battle for being first on the EU list. Was Pechtold on the right wing economically or focused more on that aspect than others?

Names often mentioned are MPs Jan Paternotte and Rob Jetten (but the latter is probably too young and inexperienced) and ministers Sigrid Kaag and Kajsa Ollongren. MEP Sophie In 't Veld could probably have had a decent shot but was just re-elected as number one candidate on the EU list.

Sigrid Kaag is the one to watch: she is not a party machine politician, but very popular within the party and viewed as "stateswomanlike". The media love her and she just made a widely lauded speech in which she called on citizens to remain vigilant when it comes to "populism." The only question is whether she wants it. Ollongren has made herself very unpopular both within and outside her party by being responsible for abolishing the referendum. Her record in Amsterdam wasn't too stellar either, and she is uncharismatic. She was viewed as the "crown princess" of the party in early 2017 but I don't think this is going to happen anymore. I would place my bets on Kaag or Paternotte.

Pechtold was probably more economically right-wing than a lot of D66 voters, but I would not say any of the abovementioned candidates would have markedly different policy preferences than he had, though obviously someone like Sigrid Kaag has a very different, international profile. Though Paternotte would perhaps be more inclined to care about direct democracy and 'democratic renewal', and may also be more of a 'realo' on integration and multiculturalism.

[DavidB.]

Fully agreed with your comments on Kaag. I initially thought she didn't have any leadership ambitions but it is actually logical for her to have them and the speech, in which she broke the unofficial code for ministers (that are not party leaders) not to talk about subjects they are not responsible for, made me think she wants it, though I still would not be surprised if she does not do it.

But I don't think Paternotte is too inexperienced. He became a member of the Amsterdam council in 2006 already, led D66 Amsterdam to their big election victory in 2014, was successful in striking a coalition agreement, and subsequently led the D66 group. He has been in parliament for 1.5 years now, which should be enough to learn the rules of The Hague. Admittedly he is my preferred candidate. Jetten led D66 Nijmegen from 2010 until the 2017 election, but Nijmegen is of course not the same as Amsterdam.

[DavidB.]

There are two elections coming up, though. I guess D66 could pull a GL, as Van Ojik led the party as placeholder from 2012 until 2015 including the municipal, European and provincial elections. However, the difference with GL is that D66 are bound to lose a lot in the provincial and European elections unless something changes. They should probably just call a leadership election to be held in early February and be done with it.

I bet VVD and CDA would be happy with a placeholder though. D66 is clearly the unstable factor in the government: if anyone is going to pull the plug, it's D66. And they won't do so without a permanent leader.

[DavidB.]

The D66 MPs elected Rob Jetten as their new parliamentary group leader. A leadership election will follow later, but it seems obvious that Jetten would be a candidate.

[DavidB.]

What are positions of new leader on ecological issues and migration politics? Some major differences compared to Pechtold in different policies?

Jetten has always carefully toed the party line so I don't know how, if in any way, he would differ from Pechtold.

[DavidB.]

They could theoretically also wait for a while and see whether he becomes as popular as desired. If not, they can elect a different leader (but it would probably have to be Kaag or Ollongren, no MP is going to challenge Jetten anymore) and claim Jetten was always just going to be the parliamentary leader. But I agree that it's much more likely that he will indeed become party leader now. Good grief. Dude seems like an empty suit to me.

[DavidB.]

The dividend tax will not be abolished. Instead, a number of measures aimed at lowering other taxes for both multinational corporations and SMEs are taken. The total package will cost 1.9 billion euros a year, equivalent to the costs of the proposed abolishment of the dividend tax.

Embarrassing for the VVD, but definitely the best decision and voters will forget about it.

[DavidB.]

It does appear as if "Robot" Jetten isn't ready for this yet. His promotion came at the worst time. Meanwhile I'm still picking up certain signs suggesting that Kaag may interested.

A seat loss for D66 in the next election is inevitable, but they definitely won't fall back as much as in 2006 (admittedly a low bar), and if they actually pull the plug on the coalition by themselves they may be able to minimize their losses. Though this could easily backfire too, especially with their stability-oriented, highly educated electorate. The old D66 adagium "Regeren is halveren" (=governing means decreasing by half) still seems the best bet to me.

[DavidB.]

RIP to former Prime Minister Wim Kok (PvdA), who just passed away at age 80. Kok led the two purple governments (PvdA-VVD-D66, 1994-2002), was PvdA leader for sixteen years, Finance Minister in the Lubbers-III government for five years (1989-1994), and trade union leader for twelve years. He will be remembered as the union man who ultimately sang the praises of the PvdA "losing its ideological feathers" and embracing the Third Way. Kok led the last coalition before the Fortuyn revolt. At the time, Purple was popular, but everyone who thinks of Purple now thinks of Fortuyn and his electoral success. Afterwards, Kok made a lot of money at ING Bank, Shell, and KLM: he undoubtedly embodies the PvdA's embrace of capitalism.

[DavidB.]

Peil.nl conducted a poll for the Provincial Elections in March.

These elections are very important, because the Provincial States (PS) elect the Senate, which used to be depoliticized in less politically polarized and fragmented times, but has now taken up an increasingly important political role. This means lacking a majority in the Senate is a real problem for any government.

Rutte's governments have lacked a majority in the Senate from May 2011 until the formation of the current coalition, so it's not the end not to have a majority, but it requires striking deals with additional parties. Since "constructive" opposition parties are running out of seats, this may prove more difficult now than it was at the time. But I'm sure SGP and PvdA will ultimately be willing to lend a helping hand to Rutte. GL will want to avoid to do so.

Voting behavior for PS19 by GE17 vote, compared to PS15:



The government has a one-seat majority in the Senate and needs a miracle to keep this majority, because D66 and CDA are destined to lose large numbers of seats in the PS and (therefore) in the Senate. The VVD are made of teflon and seem stable, CU will also be stable. Big winners in the PS elections will be GL and FVD. The PvdA may lose even more compared to their catastrophic result in PS15, which may damage Asscher's position (if they're lucky - he probably needs to go for them to be able to rebuild).

The picture is one of small gains for the left, big gains for the far-right (FVD +8%, PVV stable), losses for the center-right, and more losses for the "establishment 4" of VVD, CDA, D66, PvdA.

[DavidB.]

It's getting increasingly challenging with the level of fragmentation we're currently experiencing, and there seems to be no quick fix or potential solution with the system that we have (which is unlikely to change). We'll have to deal with it. I guess we'll have a two-horse race election once in a while, which makes coalition formation easier, but elections like in 2010 and 2017 with that level of fragmentation will likely only become more prevalent in the future. It is what it is.

FVD are a new populist right-wing party focusing on direct democracy, opposition to mass immigration, opposition to the EU, maintaining Dutch traditions and values, and lowering taxes for small and mid-sized businesses. They mainly attract voters from PVV, CDA and VVD.

[DavidB.]

Can anyone tell me why the animal rights party hasn’t merged with the greens? Like do they attract different demographics or what?

The PvdD are both much more "radical" in terms of worldview (degrowth, localization, hence euroskepticism) and much less willing to compromise than GL. In terms of voter demographics there is considerable overlap (but also differences: PvdD attract voters who do not necessarily identify as left-wing), but those who built the PvdD project generally have a different background than the GL leadership: they usually weren't part of the "left-wing bubble". So a different crowd, a different worldview, and a different strategy.

Moreover, parties generally only merge when all potential partners are in decline and face an existential crisis. The PvdD have only been growing. No need for them to merge with anybody.

[DavidB.]

Is the lasting effects of pillarisation that prominent in the Dutch system? How has the country not broken apart yet from the ongoing addition of parties in the parliament? There aren’t enough flags or colors on a rainbow to accommodate all the parties.

The fragmentation is more of a consequence of pillarization not lasting... depillarization caused voters to actually choose between parties. The country has not fallen apart because most parties essentially almost want the same things - or, to put it differently, there are different long-term visions and different short-term visions, but the medium-term goal of almost all parties is the same: a prosperous and safe Netherlands with a decent welfare state embedded in a prosperous Europe.

The number of parties is not the problem. The effective number of parties is: the lack of big parties and abundance of mid-sized parties is.

[DavidB.]

I don't remember if this has been answered recently, but are there any debate on removing the senate, or at least the powers it has? A fully proportional electoral system is a holy virtue that should be protected at every cost, but there is little reason to complicate things with an additional chamber with a "mid-term election".

Interestingly there used to be more debate about this issue before 2011 - i.e. before governments with minorities in the Senate became the norm and before the Senate became this politicized. It was the typical kind of statement that you had to write essays for or against in secondary school. D66 and PVV still support abolishing the Senate, but there is barely any discussion about this issue anymore.

Apart from the fact that actually abolishing it would be politically impossible because our constitution is set in stone and can barely be changed (as mvd10 already alluded to), I think the international climate in which "anti-establishment" forces tend to take power (as well as the PVV experiment here) is partly the reason why even D66 don't talk about this anymore - the Senate is valued as a check on "anti-establishment" forces taking (too much) power, even if this is already highly unlikely because of the electoral system for parliament. Moreover, during the Rutte-II government, some Senate decisions were widely appreciated as unpopular legislation that had reached a bare majority in parliament due to shady coalition compromises was rolled back.

--

FVD presented their treasurer Henk Otten as leading candidate for the Senate election. I had expected their main intellectual, Professor in Philosophy of Law Paul Cliteur, to be nominated for this. Otten is a safe choice and basically the number two within the party. He differs from Baudet in that he doesn't want much to do with the entire cultural Christian and reactionary ideas of Baudet (as well as his controversial detours) and would instead focus on the basics: lower taxes and less immigration. So more of a guy who is too right-wing for the VVD in all aspects but doesn't really appear to agree with the bigger ideological worldview of Baudet. A source of stability within the party.