Dutch Legislative Election: Int'l Media and Opinions

The international media expected the populist wave of Brexit and Trump to break through the dikes of Dutch political landscape and expected to hail Geert Wilders. After Ayan Hirshi Ali best known for anti-immigration rhetoric and bashing Islam in the Low Country. Following the polling trend lines, I kinda predicted PM Rutte’s Conservative Liberal part (VVD) would triumph over Geert Wilders’ one member Freedom party (PVV).

What broke the camel’s back was the war of words with Sultan Erdogan of Turkey just a week before the election. See my diary …

○ Dutch Election Prelude – Political Row with Turkey Escalates

Usually in the Dutch election cycle, there are two major parties leading the polls in a dead heat. In the past it would have switched between the Right and Left. That’s what happened five years ago between the VVD and Labour party PvdA. Citizens would vote strategically on turn away from the minor parties. The Christian Democrats as centrist party would lose both from their right and left flank and the smaller socialist parties would lose to Labour.

Not so this time around. The dead heat was between two right-wing parties of Mark Rutte and Geert Wilders. A few days ago, about 40% of the electorate was undecided. Turkish president Erdogan intervened and gave a chance to PM Rutte to show leadership. The VVD was rewarded with a major boost from 25 seats to 33 seats. Still a loss of 8 seats compared to 2012. The Labour party was punished by long time loyal supporters for the decision in 2012 to join the coalition of Mark Rutte and took severe austerity measures. Labour strongholds were the major cities above the Rhine river. PvdA lost up to 75% of their support.

Amsterdam PvdA 2012-35.8% 2016-8.4% Winner: Green party – 19.3% / D’66 – 18.2%
Rotterdam PvdA 2012-32.0% 2016-6.4% Winner: VVD – 16,4% / PVV – 16.1%
Utrecht PvdA 2012-29.6% 2016-5.9% Winner: D’66 – 22.2% / Green party – 20.2%
The Hague PvdA 2012-29.2% 2016-6.5% Winner: VVD – 20.6% / PVV – 15.5%
Groningen PvdA 2012-36.4% 2016-8.0% Winner: D’66 – 22.2% / Green party – 20.2%

In the northern province of Groningen, always a socialist stronghold after the fall of communism, a major issue are the earth tremors or minor earthquakes caused by decades of gas winning. The government in The Hague had not taken the concerns of the population seriously and failed to provide compensation for serious damage to homes and businesses. The Green Party made major gains in this province.

Christian Democrats used to have a strong presentation in the two southern provinces (Catholicism). Their support lies in the rural areas and in the agricultural sector, a major boost for the Dutch economy because of export! Wilders had lived in Indonesia, a majority Muslim nation, and must carry bad memories from his years in the former Dutch colony. Wilders is popular by the old generation of Dutch people who also carry memories of their youth or of parents who lived through the war for independence of Innonesia after the Japanese surrender in August 1945.

European leaders breathe easier as Rutte routs Wilders | Deutsche Welle |

With his first-place finish in the Netherlands’ elections, Mark Rutte has effectively halted the right-wing populist Geert Wilders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is among the European leaders welcoming the result.

Both the vote count tallies and the reactions poured in during the early hours of Thursday morning as politicians and individuals across Europe and the world took in the results of Wednesday’s parliamentary election in the Netherlands.

In what many considered to be a bellwether election for the European Union, the center-right Rutte clearly defeated Wilders in what many saw as a symbolic victory against European populism.

Many European leaders offered congratulatory messages to the acting Dutch prime minister, who will now stay on in office for a third term. But just as many chose to highlight Wilders’ defeat, framing his party’s second place finish with 20 seats – far below the 30-odd seats he had been predicted to win – as a resounding success for the unity and democratic values of a European Union battered by populism from both within and outside the bloc.

The Dutch election is bigger than Geert Wilders | Washington Post |

Elections 2017: What the Dutch papers say | Dutch News |

A beaming Mark Rutte features on the front page of all the Dutch papers on Thursday morning, with the exception of Trouw, which carries a dejected Lodewijk Asscher.

‘The centre wins’ the NRC headlines its election result analysis. ‘The Netherlands has woken up ‘a normal country’, in the words of VVD leader Mark Rutte,’ the paper writes. There has been no ‘populist revolt’, only a ‘couple of hammer blows’.

Among the many parties and winners the NRC detects a clear trend: the centre dominates. ‘The patriotic spring announced by PVV leader Wilders has turned out to be a mirage. The Netherlands remains what it has essentially been for decades: many-facetted and largely moderate.’

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Right-wing

‘The Netherlands wakes up a right-wing country this morning, with the VVD as the undisputed winner’, Trouw’s headline reads. Not as right-wing as the polls predicted, but ‘the parties that call themselves left wing only have a combined 37 seats, an all-time low in a trend that was started at turn of the century,’ the paper writes.

The main conclusion is that `it doesn’t pay to be in the cabinet and Rutte was not rewarded a ‘prime ministerial bonus’ for his performance in his last cabinet, says Trouw Labour’s ‘knock-out’ is a bitter pill for the party and will force it to `look long and hard at its raison d’être.’

PM Mark Rutte sees off far-right Geert Wilders | Sky News |

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has won the country’s election, holding off a strong challenge from far-right leader Geert Wilders. Mr Rutte’s centre-right VVD party is thought to have taken 33 of the 150 parliamentary seats, 13 more than Mr Wilders’ anti-Islam, anti-immigrant PVV party in second.

He said his victory had stopped the “wrong kind of populism” in its tracks, after last year’s Brexit vote and the election of President Trump. Mr Rutte said: “We want to stick to the course we have – safe and stable and prosperous.”

Mr Wilders, who wants to close mosques, ban the Koran and leave the EU, received much of the media coverage during the campaign. In a tweet, the politician, sometimes called the Dutch Donald Trump, thanked his backers and warned: “Rutte is not rid of me by a long shot”.

My post before any results were known in the morning of March 15th.

More below the fold …
The Dutch and the Populist Tide
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Brexit – Trump – Wilders – will the Dutch stem the tide of populism today? I trust they will … the voting is under way and I have a good feeling Geert Wilders will not gain sufficient foothold to be a key player in the coalition forming starting tomorrow.

Will the modern Hans Brinker, representing Dutch youth, vote for the Green Party and tolerance?

Green Party leader Jesse Klaver is being described as the Dutch answer to Canada’s Justin Trudeau.

The 30-year-old, who has both Moroccan and Indonesian roots, has offered a very different message to the tougher rhetoric of Geert Wilders and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, in the run-up to Wednesday’s big election in the Netherlands.

With the Dutch Labour Party seemingly tanking in the polls [last update], voters are looking for an alternative and they are looking towards Klaver. He could end up as a kingmaker in future coalition talks.

“I think we are still a tolerant country,” Klaver told Euronews, while on the campaign trail in Leiden, a university city around 15 kilometres from the Hague.

“We are a country who believes in freedom and we are an emphatic society I would say. Geert Wilders is losing momentum. You know he was very high in the polls and now he is going down and down and down. And that’s where he should be.

“And a lot of people who are voting for Geert Wilders are not racist, they are very tolerant. Except they are only afraid for what is happening in their lives. They are afraid for their future.”

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God created the world but the Dutch fought the elements to create Holland. The fight continues to accept not only the people from earlier conquests of the colonies in the Caribbean and Far East, but also the migrant workers from Turkey and Morocco who have shaped and build a multicultural society of today. See the earlier acceptance of reality from pope Francis – Europe’s Destiny Is Multicultural.

« click for more info When the dikes broke on Sunday morning on Februari 1, 1953