Current Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte looks set for a comprehensive victory and a fourth consecutive term with the Dutch in national elections on Monday, with voting spread over three days due to coronavirus restrictions.
Research predicts that Rutte, who has headed three coalition governments of different political features since 2010, and his center-right Popular Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), will win twice as many parliamentary seats as his closest rival.
In progress for 36 to 40 seats, the VVD has ruled out working with Geert Wilders’ second largest party, Anti-Islam Freedom (PVV). Research suggests that Rutte will need three coalition partners and forming a government can take weeks.
The popular prime minister is expected to win more seats than in the 2017 election, despite violent riots against the curfew and his cabinet resignation in January because of a major child benefit scandal with racist overtones in which more than 25,000 families have been unfairly accused of fraud.
“He has maintained his ‘rally around the flag’ momentum since the start of the pandemic,” said Pepijn Bergsen, a researcher at Chatham House and a specialist in the Netherlands. “And Covid completely pacified the political debate – it took all the energy out of politics.”
Rem Korteweg of thinktank Clingendael said that Rutte, who recently relaxed some restrictions on the coronavirus, had three main assets: politically, he was a “great technician” who also had “genuine personal appeal” and was “Teflon: problems don’t last. ”.
What is the political scenario and how does the system work?
There are 150 deputies in parliament, which means that a government needs 76 seats to form a majority. No party has ever managed this, and the Netherlands has been governed by coalitions for more than a century.
The Netherlands has a purely proportional representation system in which the whole country is, in fact, a single national electorate. Any party that obtains 0.67% of the national vote has a guaranteed seat.
This produced a surprising fragmentation of the landscape: a record 37 different parties are competing in this election, and up to 15 could enter parliament. Support for large traditional parties (with the notable exception of Rutte’s VVD) has fallen dramatically in recent decades.
What other parties are competing and how will they do?
The two main partners of the Rutte coalition, the Christian Democrats (CDA) and the progressive liberal D66, aim for 16-18 and 14-16 seats, respectively. His third partner, the small conservative Christian Union, is expected to get five to seven.
Green Left ecologists are on the course between 11 and 13, the Labor Party (PvdA) is expected to rebound slightly to 11-13 from a disastrous display in 2017, when it lost three of the four seats, and the Socialist Party could get 11.
After that, the smaller parties that are expected to win seats include the religious parties, the Party for Animals (PvdD); the 50Plus party for retirees; Denk (Think), who mainly courts Muslim immigrants; and the pro and pan-European Volt movement.
And the far right?
Wilders, who briefly supported Rutte’s first coalition, is expected to win 12-14% of the national vote and almost the same number of seats as in 2017. His manifesto again calls for the “de-lamination” of the Netherlands.
He wants a minister for reemigration, no longer refugee permits for Syrians and the army to “retake the streets”. Its stagnation in the polls is mainly due to the fact that its main vote winner, immigration, is not the issue of the 2017 red button.
The flamboyant Thierry Baudet and his Democracy Forum, which finished first in the 2019 provincial elections, almost imploded under allegations of racism and anti-Semitism, and Baudet himself became a theorist of the Trumpian conspiracy.
What is Rutte’s secret?
He is an experienced trader with a talent for building and maintaining unlikely alliances. He projects the kind of serious image that the Dutch like, notably since he refused to allow parliamentary cleansing to mop up his spilled coffee and make it himself.
Critics say he is more interested in power than in principles and has no difficulty giving in to the extreme right on issues such as immigration, “Dutch values” and integration. But he is rarely at odds with the views of many of his voters.
Rutte still lives in the same part of The Hague where he grew up, rides his bike to work, goes on vacation with the same friends, is single and – as far as we know – has never had a relationship. He says he doesn’t have time.
The family experienced difficult times: during World War II, Rutte’s father and his first wife were interned by the Japanese in Indonesia; she did not survive. The family fled the former colony amid anti-Dutch protests and started over from scratch in The Hague, where Rutte was born. His older brother died of AIDS, a tragedy that he said made him realize “you only have one chance in life”. He worked for Unilever before becoming junior minister of social affairs in 2002, leader of the VVD party in 2006 and prime minister in 2010.
What are the problems?
This was a flat campaign, with Covid taking the wind out of Dutch politics. There is a broad consensus on how the government is dealing with the crisis. Other topics discussed included post-pandemic fiscal changes and approaches to the climate crisis.
The VVD’s economically moderate manifesto focuses on the public sector, health, a higher minimum wage and tax cuts. Socially conservative measures include green road pricing, a refugee quota and stricter integration requirements for immigrants.
What will happen next and what will the next government be like?
Voting closes at 9 pm on Wednesday. Once the results are known, parliament appoints a respected older statesman, known as informer, to explore possible coalition permutations with the main parties.
Then the informer name one former (usually the leader of the largest party, probably Rutte) to start coalition negotiations. This can easily take a few months, although in 2017 it took a record 208 days.
With CDA and D66 polls slightly lower than in 2017, it is likely that Rutte will again need three partners to secure the majority. Potential candidates include, in addition to the VVD, the Christian Democrats, D66, Labor, Green Left and the Socialist Party.