I didn’t see a thread about today’s elections in the Netherlands.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-15/where-are-the-battlegrounds-in-the-dutch-election
I’m really hoping the Liberal Party of Mark Rutte crushes the far right anti-Islam Geert Wilders, who has become known in the USA thanks to extreme right wing congressman Steve King of Iowa. It’s also important for the Liberal Party to win to help roll back the anti-EU tide.
Yes:
In Netherlands' elections, a fight for the Dutch soul - CSMonitor.com
The world will NOT benefit from any further spread of Trumpism, certainly.
Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy is also pretty nativist and through its pro-austerity socioeconomic policy has polarized Dutch politics. I’m rooting for the Socialist Party and the Christian Union to do well so we can get a government that implements progressive socioeconomic policies, fight social atomization, and combat evils such as promiscuous euthanasia.
Exit poll just been released
Badly pasted from here:
http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nederland/politiek/liveblog-vvd-veruit-de-grootste-in-voorlopige-exitpoll
No offense, but the posts so far show very little understanding of Dutch politics and its parties.
The result is fairly close to the latest polling data, with the PVV (Wilders) doing slightly worse and the VVD (Rutte) doing better. I keep seeing international media descrive Wilders as a “rise” of the extreme right.
People voting for anti immigrant parties has been a reality of Dutch politics for 15 years now. First with the murdered Pim Fortuyn and afterwards with Wilders. In this time they have had anything between 10 and 26 seats in parliament (out of 150). They actually lost quite heavily in the last election and now they won back a few seats.
Our system is geting more and more diffuse with many different parties. This has also been going on for a long time, but usually the two most likely winners start drawing away votes form the smaller parties as the elections come nearer. That didn’t really happen this time around.
If the exit polls are correct it pretty much means at least 4 parties in a government coalition, with three of them (VVD, CDA and D66) all but sure of their place in this coalition. They will need either Groenlinks (green and left) or the smaller christian parties (bible thumpers, but with a knack of wanting to be responsible) to reach the minimum of 75+1 majority.
There are other options possible, but given the way the results have gone and the single issue nature of some parties… I don’t see those happening.
Hear hear - it’s bizarre to see everyone talk about this result as though Fortuyn never lived and Wilders did not already get 24/150 seats 7 yrs ago. And as though this rise of the farright has engulfed Holland when in fact about 85% (with > 80% turnout) are voting for other parties, most of which have rejected Wilders as a coalition partner
Jeez German and BBC reports are soooo bad. Claiming it as “new” that the right is determining the debating points in the election (and there being a shift to the right in the Netherlands)… while this has been going on for 15 years, and honestly, this election it was far less the case than previously (mostly because Wilders refused to debate fo most of the time).
The Newsnight claims Wilders received half the votes from what the polls predicted. The last results from the average of the polls predicted Wilders to get between 19 and 23 seats. The exit polls indicate it is going to be 19. How is that half? Really sub par reporting.
They also claim the VVD has “moved” to the right, while they have always (especially the last decade) been sceptical of immigration. Really, the conclusions are ridiculous.
Is it just me or is the leader of Groen Links Justin Trudeau’s Dutch lovechild?
Looks like VVD+CDA+D66 might actually eke out a small majority.
Maybe it’s the Trump effect. Everyone seems to want to interpret things through the Trump lens now.
I was surprised to see they elected Stephen Colbert. 
Or maybe the establishment media still hasn’t learnt from the Trump Débâcle that stating pre-formed ‘facts’ they want and polls that foster self-delusion bears no relation to actuality.
One good thing is that the credibility of these preening charlatans who preached austerity to the poor and fawned on the 1%, war to the world and increased consumption at home, was completely shot by the dire result — which is the reason they have declared war on El Trumpo.
So, I’m American and see everything as binary: did Wilders lose?
Depends on what you call ‘winning’.
He got 13% of the vote. That’s less than he wanted, less than he was polling at some weeks ago, more than he got in 2012, less than he got in 2010, which in turn was less than Pim Fortuyn got in 2002.
His party is not the largest but it is the second largest - out of 13 parties that entered parliament.
He’s not going to be the President - because we don’t have one.
He’s not going to be in the Government, because most other parties won’t work with him.
His policies and his rhetoric are copied by others on the right who pander to his potential voters.
He received more attention over the last few weeks than anyone in Dutch politics ever has.
He has not been home since 2004.
So … You’re talking about the Animal Party, right? Or the party for voters aged 50+ perhaps?
Gotcha. Ancestors from Fresia. Mildly interestetd-.
Frisia, eh. I lived there for 10 years. Fine part of the country.
Home of my surname.
Wilders was never going to win. Wilders winning would require him getting more votes than every other party put together - anything less than that, and they’d form a coalition government of everyone-but-Wilders.
Hmmm…Or someone would succumb and agree with an alliance?