Dutch elections: the game starts now
The present news brief is published in the framework of Fondazione ISMU’s strategic line of research
Immigration and the future of Europe
by Marta Regalia and Pierre Georges Van Wolleghem
March the 16th, 2017
European newspapers and politicians across Europe are celebrating this day; the day in which continuity won and populism backed off. Wilders, given victory in the polls for some time, ends up with 20 seats in the Chamber, less than forecast but more than in the past election (15 seats in the Chamber), making the PVV the second political force of the country. Prime Minister Rutte (VVD) wins the race and is likely to start a third mandate despite a loss of 8 seats. The Labour party (PvdA), Rutte’s partner in the coalition ruling until this day, undergoes a huge loss and passes from 38 seats to a sheer 9 seats. The Greens (GL) becomes the first leftist party of the country with 16 seats (whereas it had 4 before), two more than the Socialist Party.
Figure 1 – Eight biggest parties in new Dutch Parliament, with 95% of the ballots counted
Source: own elaboration on figures provided by Le Monde
Figure 2 – Variation in seats for the eight biggest parties in new Dutch Parliament (compared to 2012 elections), with 95% of the ballots counted
Source: own elaboration on figures provided by Le Monde
Those are the dry figures. Now the coalition game will start; in a political landscape more fractioned than before. Government Rutte II, in office from 2012 until now, gathered Rutte’s VVD (41 seats) and the Labour party (38 seats), a two-party coalition controlling a majority in the Chamber. Given the outcomes of this round, the coalition to come will have to put up with more parties, most likely four to five for a simple majority, even more if the goal is to build a supermajority to face potential defections on specific votes. If we reason in terms of position on the political spectrum, the VVD, a liberal party, may be able to coalesce with the Christian Democrats (CDA) to its right and the Democrats (D66) to its left. That would amount to 71 seats, five seats short for a simple majority. Wilders has declared it would not hamper the adoption of bills in line with his party’s positions, but that does not make him a viable partner, for reasons we already saw and that notably regard European questions. A fourth party (and a fifth if the would-be government aims at building up a supermajority) will have to be picked on the left wing, which would stretch the coalition across the board with the risk of a disagreement with the CDA; unless the ChristenUnie (with its 6 seats), with a position close to that of CDA, is picked. Another possibility lies with the VVD turning to the left, coalescing with the Greens (16 seats), the SP (14), the PvdA (9) and the D66 (19), a little strategic choice as the VVD would find itself on one side of the coalition (with all its partners on the left). Ideally, it should seek to be in the middle of the coalition; i.e. with parties on its right and parties on its left, in order to hold a strong negotiation position and have the other parties compromise on their preferences. To put it simply… well, there’s still some uncertainty.
One thing is certain though: voter turnout was massive, the highest in 30 years, 77.6% of the voters went to the ballot box. We already published a first comment in the prospect of the elections on this page in which we asked whether Wilders had already won. We warned the reader that many Dutch voters were still undecided so that polls were to be considered with caution. It now seems that most voters finally made up their mind and decided to place Wilders behind. But we also pointed out how much Wilders has given the tone in the campaign, and how much mainstream parties attempted to play on his ground. Irrespective of the coalition that will be formed, our curiosity goes to what the first party in the Netherlands for the past seven years (Rutte’s) will actually do with regard to immigration, Islam and diversity.
Now framing these results in terms of attitudes toward immigration and the European Union (Figure 3), we can see that 45,8% of the votes were cast in favour of parties which have a positive standing toward the EU (D66, CDA, VVD), while only half of them (22,2%) in favour of anti-EU parties (PVV and SP).
The situation is opposite if we look at immigration. 34,3% of the electorate voted for parties (PVV and VVD) that want a more severe immigration policies or that are strongly anti-immigration. On the contrary, only 26,8% of the votes were casted in favour of parties with a more positive standing on immigration (PvdA, GL and D66).
Figure 3 – Dutch parties’ positions on immigration and European Union