The Netherlands: What's next ?

Dear reader,

the Dutch cabinet has announced its resignation.

How it happened has been described already here and although some Dutch economists are even celebrating this event as a 'victory for Keynesians', one must be keeping a watchful eye towards politicians and their reasoning given in public.

Wilders and his party
Mr Wilders has said, that he was acting on behalf of Dutch pensioners in danger of getting run over by austerity measures 'dictated by Brussels'. As some political observers already noted, those rules 'from Brussels' are actually based on Dutch proposals going back to the 1990s when the 'Maastricht guidelines' were put into force. And also later throughout several Dutch cabinets, the deficit and debt to GDP guidelines were always defended vigorously by the Dutch. One reason that some European commentators are now feeling some 'Schadenfreude' about the fact, the now the Dutch government also feels the heat of 'Brussels' (the EU). As Dutch public TV NOS points out, also Mr Wilders was de facto connected to latest Dutch cabinet under PM Rutte and he also supported tight rules concerning those 'Maastricht criteria' for others. The author here will later give a few remarks concerning those guidelines and also upon the piece of professor Engelen, but first he likes to remind the reader, that many, if not all, politicians have to bend the truth in order to remain the 'good guy' they want to be perceived by their electorate.

So after reading the events leading up to the 'Njet' of Mr Wilders last Saturday they might explain the rather irrational behavior of Mr Wilders, described as such by some political commentators during last weekend. Since then some more circumstantial evidence appeared in Dutch media. So after Hero Brinkman accused Mr Wilders of 'dictatorial style of leadership' and leaving theparliamentary group of the PVV, those reports focused on other former PVV party members and elected representatives from former regional legislators also supported that thesis. They were from all over the country, all of them quitting the PVV party recently and all of them disappointed to find out, that they were used as pawns only for the grip on power of Mr Wilders. They reported that Mr Wilders seeked especially politically unexperienced people to be put on the ballot list, but they were expected not to develop own ideas or to gain an own profile. Instead Mr Wilders wanted them to repeat the slogans he wanted them to repeat and he blocked every move to make even local subsidiaries more independent from central ruling and also every challenge of his leadership. It was a 'one man show' by Mr Wilders and during the weekend the author here even noticed a Tweet accusing him of acting like one ancient old African authoritarian leader. That is of course heavily exaggerated, but nevertheless it cannot be denied that PVV is Mr Wilders and Mr Wilders is PVV. During the weekend of course many TV stations and newspapers wanted to invite Mr Wilders or any other spokesperson of the PVV party to join other party leaders and have a public debate about what happened and what's next. Mr Wilders and his PVV declined to so and he used his method of choice by keeping a distance and has the Dutch media & public waiting for one of his new Twitter messages. Like he was some kind of Messiah.

Coming back to the point of his reasoning of letting those crucial budget talks breaking down, it is interesting to note what some commentators had to say about the decline of number of seats in 2nd chamber, the Dutch lower house. They pointed out that already the opinion polls showed a steady decline of PVV seats in parliament and so Mr Wilders had to choose between a rock and a hard place. Standing idly by while his ratings plummeting after signing an agreement of strict austerity measures along the lines drawn by the CPB, or counter the slower but also steady decline by boycotting the austerity talks and playing the 'hero of the pensioners'. While he was giving a bit chaotic presser on Saturday after the talks were cut short, some economists already checked the data published by CPB and came to the conclusion that Mr Wilders also created a myth of 'deep cuts', while the CPB data is actually telling a different story.

On Sunday there was already one report by the Dagelijkse Standaard, which told the story of at least 5 MPs of the PVV parliamentary group threatening to step down or switch to other parties when Mr Wilders would sign the 'Catshuis agreement' (which was after 7 weeks almost completely negotiated and ready for signing). Now, Monday April 23rd, another report by the same paper suggests that Mr Wilders intents to eliminate some of his MPs (5-8) by either not placing them on the ballot at all or assign them a rank highly unlikely to gain enough votes to get elected. So by gambling on new, possibly very soon to be held, elections he can even get rid of some of his MPs with a lesser degree of loyalty. Mr Wilders cleverly used provocation, xenophobia, refraining from discussions, putting out statements on Twitter etc in order to create an image similar to that of his role model Mr Pim Fortuyn, who also took very successfully advantage of the gaps the other parties of the Dutch political spectrum left by alienating their electorate. He also took up certain items in his election pledge considered a 'taboo'. Mr Wilders had/has a fine sense of what 'works' and what doesn't. His latest 'coup' was the establishment of a website for complaints about Eastern European citizens living and/or working in Holland. Although Mr Rutte did whatever he could in order not to give Mr Wilders more attention than he would without him as PM reacting to it, even when other European politicians demanded that he should force Mr Wilders to stop his controversial project.
In fact the author here thinks Mr Wilders is a copy cat, a clone of Mr Fortuyn, only perhaps acting less excentric and providing a better image by being also a 'family man'. As already pointed out before, Mr Wilders was serving many years as a VVD MP, which means he was center-right and an accepted liberal (not to be understood in the American meaning !), but started to think about his career at a time when the VVD didn't have such a power base of so many seats in parliament nowadays and even more in current opinion polls. At the time CDA was larger than VVD and so VVD had to be a junior partner in every center-right cabinet, or much worse for Mr Wilders a junior partner of Labour. (cabinets later described as 'purple') Of course his radical views contributed to end his career within the VVD party. He must have watched the fast and unexpected success of Mr Fortuyn with much interest, and the violent death of this 'role model' was just 2 years earlier. Mr Wilders had also the chance to see the demise of the LPF soon after its leader and founder was killed.(One feels reminded about the short lived cabinet also of CDA, VVD and LPF as 'newcomer')
 
The pariah
Not only was the sudden end of the cabinet a reminder of the rather wobbly construction back then when the LPF was a member of a center-right government, but it was also a personal defeat for both Mr Rutte and even more Mr Verhagen who back in 2010 had to convince skeptical party members and backbenchers to form a new center-right government. Even more so when they tried for the first time to have an official minority cabinet with some 'toleration' of the PVV or better of one person only - Mr Wilders. Although his attitude towards foreigners in general and Muslims in particular was most prominent, the other political agenda of this party was in fact more 'leftist' and although Mr Wilders tried to sell the sudden death of the 'catshuis' negotiations as a heroic deed for the wellbeing of the Dutch pensioners, Mr Samson (PvdA) already ruled out every cooperation with PVV on public TV. So Mr Wilders will most likely not get any coalition offers of any other political party in the Netherlands. The left has strong objections against his xenophobic agenda, and the right is very disappointed, upset and lost every confidence in his reliability. It could be said, that he and his PVV will be as isolated as 'Vlaams Blok' at the time the party wasn't forbidden in Belgium. Political commentators in NL said already that it was incredibly unwise to give up this unique position of power although not officially member of the cabinet.


Elections

As of tonight a majority of Dutch parties represented in current Dutch 2nd chamber wants to hold elections as soon as possible. They agreed on one possible date - June 27th 2012 - , but only hours before both the 'kiesraad', an advice body for parliament dealing with questions around electoral right and election technicalities, as well as some smaller factions objected. Some who will possibly not have enough time to organize a ballot have even threatened to take matters to the courts. So we have to see if a majority consensus is sufficient to have those elections held before the summer vacations or afterwards. Others also argue, that the political parties once in full campaigning mode won't live up to their promise to get together and finalize the budget for 2013, where the PVV walked out of those negotiations. For instance Diederik Samson (PvdA) said on Dutch public TV NOS: "Elections should be held as soon as possible. There was enough delay already on the budget negotiations. If we hurry up and finish the ballot list until May 15th we can vote on June 27th"

However the NOS political reporter reiterates that this early date is probably too soon for new parties in order to organize properly.

Mr Pechtold, leader of D'66 party said on BNR Nieuwsradio earlier that two possible dates would be September the 5th and 12th , both Wednesdays. (a traditional day for going to the polls)

Budget talks
So although the final day for seeking the voters' mandate may not be that clear, one must point out that so far four parties: VVD,CDA,Labour and D'66 have spoken out for further negotiations on a budget for 2013 before the 'old' parliament gets dissolved. The author didn't here anything so far from SGP, but since they have been involved in the end phase of the 'Catshuis' talks, it's fair to assume that they will also contribute to a new agreement, most probably based on the package already on the table. All these parties seem to know their responsibility for their country as well as the significance of such an agreement for the eurozone as a whole. The importance as well as the credibility of the Netherlands is concerned, when asking repeatedly for strict obedience of the Maastricht guidelines, as also the importance to retain the current 'AAA', not only significant for national borrowing cost, but also for the possible consequences for EFSF and ESM. So although these political parties also have an interest to gain as many votes they can, it's fair to assume that they would  act less ruthless as Mr Wilders, only interested in gaining as much public support as possible. They have all combined 94 seats in current legislative body, so it's a very broad base for getting a new budget through parliament, even when a few backbenchers wouldn't be satisfied and abstain or even vote against a new proposal.  
It is also worth to point out that important Dutch industrial giants such as Philips and the VNO-NCW organisation put out a public statement, calling on all political parties to act reasonably and not to forget the probable dire consequences also for their businesses.

Another 'carrot' may be hanging in front of all other parties' nose, which is the fact, that Dutch voters showed a high willingness to change their mind and vote for others parties, once they were disappointed by one they voted for last time. So this volatility (much higher than e.g. in Germany) might give the other parties an opportunity to gain back some of the support they lost last time, when voters endorsed PVV mostly in order to punish the 'old' parties. Already latest opinion polls see growing numbers of former PVV voters now ready to lift the seats of the VVD, the party of incumbent PM Rutte, who gained credibility during his time in office. The other parties may also hope to cut some chunks out of Mr Wilders failure and the public also seem to have understood Mr Wilders' ploy. So, when the other parties get their act together and reach a budget agreement, with minor impact on Dutch economy and society, they can be hopeful of gaining electoral support for themselves and also of decimating the one of Mr Wilders, who acted irresponsibly and all the other politicians now dislike and see as a 'political pariah'. (This message was put out on TV more than once last weekend) 


References:
Seats in parliament 1946 -2010

some useful additional info:
The Queen can choose one out of three scenarios (De Volkskrant)(dut)

more references will be added later (lack of time), as well as some comments on the 'Keynesian delight' Mr Wilders was able to invoke and Mr Engelen described in his piece mentioned in the beginning of this blog entry.