A puzzle of liberals, Christian Democrats, socialists and far-right vie for the Government of the Netherlands
The Dutch elect this Wednesday a Parliament that will surely be very fragmented. The Kingdom of the Netherlands does not have an absolute majority, but it is not even close to the imperfect two-party system of Spain. Its political system is so open and plural that although the Chamber has 150 seats, none of the formations that are presented will exceed 30 deputies, according to the polls.
There are four candidates who start as favorites, but none has a considerable advantage over the others, so the election is still completely open. Everything points to a conservative government that includes the extreme right, which even stands out as a possible list with the most votes in the latest polls.. But a pact from the left to the center is also possible.
Surveys in recent days show slight changes compared to recent weeks. The combination of the latest known polls, according to Peilingwijzer, shows that Geert Wilders' far-right is rising after moderating his speech until he is slightly ahead (26-30 seats); the ruling Popular Party for Freedom and Democracy remains strong but falls to second position (22-28 deputies); The social democrats of Frans Timmermans rise, although from third place, precisely because of the fear of the radical right (21-25), and the surprise of these elections falls slightly, the New Social Contract of Pieter Omtzigt, a party with only three months of existence. life (19-25 seats). Even so, the party with the most votes does not have to later hold the leadership of the Executive.. Everything will depend on the game of majorities and the agreements that are reached after a negotiation that is expected to be long and difficult.
26 parties are running for the November 22 elections and the current Parliament welcomes representatives of 17 different parties (the Spanish Congress is considered fragmented and has 11 parties). For all this, the Dutch know that today's elections may only be the beginning of months of negotiations until a Government composed, probably, of three, four or five different parties is born.. In the last legislature, the prime minister took 271 days to close a coalition of four political parties.
Furthermore, and for the first time in 13 years, the head of the Government since 2010, Mark Rutte, is not running for office.. Its Executive exploded last summer after disagreements between the four partners of the Government coalition over immigration and asylum policy and after a scandal of institutional discrimination against thousands of immigrants who were falsely accused of having received aid. improper.
The campaign has been more tense than usual in Holland. Finally, on Monday night they brutally attacked Thierry Baudet, leader of another far-right party, Forum for Democracy (FvD), which could obtain between three and five deputies.. Baudet was hit severely on the head with a beer bottle in a cafe in the north of the Netherlands during a campaign event.. Fortunately, the candidate from the minority party is fine.
Below, we detail the most important candidates in Wednesday's elections and their electoral possibilities:
POPULAR PARTY FOR FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY
Rutte's party remains the favorite, although by a narrow margin and in tough competition with the extreme right. The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) presents as its candidate the acting Minister of Justice, Dilan Yesilgöz, who was born in Turkey and arrived in the Netherlands as an illegal immigrant at the age of eight.. Now and as a candidate, her main electoral demand is the tightening of migration and asylum policies.. His party defends the free market when it comes to the economy and is liberal on social issues.
In addition to containing immigration, his electoral program emphasizes the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime, proposes the construction of four nuclear power plants so that the Netherlands is less dependent on the outside world and wants to limit the increase in rent prices.
Yesilgöz could be the first female prime minister of the Netherlands, but she does not make a statement about it. In recent months, he has tried to distance himself from former Prime Minister Rutte with a tougher and more right-wing profile than his predecessor in the party.
Pieter Omtzigt, leader of the New Social Contract, greets a supporter at a campaign event in Diemen on November 18. EFE
NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT
A formation that was formed in August has become the surprise of this campaign by rising to the first four places. The New Social Contract (NSC) bases its success on the popularity of its leader, Pieter Omtzigt. This Christian Democrat has become the fashionable politician in the Netherlands after he was the one who denounced in Parliament the plot of institutional discrimination by the Tax Agency against low-income immigrants who had received aid. Then, he left his party, which was part of Rutte's government coalition, and just three months ago he decided to head a new political formation, the New Social Contract (NSC), also inspired by Christian Democrats.
His attractive proposal consists of a thorough reform of the Dutch State and the Administration, something very difficult to achieve because any Executive that is formed will be made up of a minimum of three parties that will have to negotiate a common program.
His voters, according to the polling companies, come from both the right and the moderate left and he could become the big surprise of these elections, although this week's polls give him a slight drop compared to the previous week and place him in fourth place.
FREEDOM PARTY
To the right of both formations is the extreme right, the Party for Freedom (PVV) of Geert Wilders, with which both the liberals of VVD and the Christian Democrats of the New Social Contract could agree.. In recent weeks, Wilders has moderated his speech in the style of Argentine Javier Milei, both to attract moderate votes from the Dutch right and to stop scaring the electorate further to the left, which could be benefiting the social democrats.. His program highlights the ban on mosques, Islamic schools, the Koran (which he compares to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf) and the veil in public buildings.
In recent weeks he has had less impact on the most radical part of his proposals and has clarified that compliance with these points would not be insurmountable conditions to be a partner in a future coalition government.
His preferred coalition would be with the VVD, the NCS and the Peasant Movement.
Frans Timmermans, candidate of the Socialists and Greens, at a rally last Saturday. AFP
SOCIAL DEMOCRATS AND GREEN
The fourth politician in the running is the former vice president of the European Commission Frans Timmermans, who heads a coalition of social democrats and greens that in the Netherlands has been compared to the Spanish model of the PSOE and Sumar: the PvdA (social democrats) and GroenLinks (greens ). Timmermans achieved this pre-electoral pact with the intention of putting himself ahead of his center and center-right competitors, but he has not achieved it.
Timmermans himself has been highlighting in recent days that he is the only candidate with the possibility of leading a Government capable of stopping the extreme right, in a strategy similar to that of Pedro Sánchez in Spain.. For this reason and according to the different polls, his coalition would be gaining votes in the final stretch of the campaign, subtracting votes from other minority left-wing candidates who have no chance of exceeding 10 seats.
The former European commissioner assured this Tuesday that his bloc “has a good chance of emerging as the largest in these elections” and promised the left-wing groups affected by the vote useful to the PvdA-GroenLinks that “he will not abandon them” if he wins.. “But if we are not the largest party, you will have the same problem as me: the right and the extreme right will win,” he stated, according to Efe.
PEASANT MOVEMENT
Finally, the Peasant Movement (BBB), which won the regional and Senate elections last March with 20% of the votes, seems to have deflated. Polls now give him between four and seven seats that could be decisive in shoring up a right-wing government.
POLITICAL PUZZLE COMPLEX
The complex Dutch political puzzle is completed by almost 10 other formations that can have between one and 10 seats and that would be key to tipping the majority to one side or the other of the balance.
The Dutch Government has historically been very important in the European Union. Rutte used to show a position that was often inflexible with the countries of the South, led the so-called frugal countries (the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Austria) and pushed to impose austerity policies on Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy.. In fact, one of Rutte's nicknames in Brussels was 'Mister No'. Although in his country he is better known as 'Mister Teflon', for his resistance to many and multiple crises until his resignation in July 2023.
For all these reasons, the next Executive in The Hague has more importance than it might seem for the interests of southern Europe, and Spain in particular, especially when the aid from the Recovery and Resilience Plan ends and the EU begins to mark more restrictive policies to stop the economic slowdown.