#vimesbootstheory

okay, so the now ex-coalition had these players:

PVV (party for freedom), far right nationalist-populists under geert wilders. received the largest share of the votes. (note: by no means a majority of the votes, just the largest share in a very fractured landscape.) wilders wanted to be prime minister, and the largest party generally gets to supply one, but the other parties blocked him ("normal" political parties, generally, do not like wilders, and do not want him to represent this country), which is how we ended up with prime minister schoof (not from the PVV. a guy nobody knew, so nobody had any objections to him) heading a cabinet to which wilders kept playing opposition even though HIS party was in it. the PVV is genuinely awful and deeply racist, and they will dabble in a little great replacement propaganda (there was a minister who tried not to denounce something she'd said about this in the past, and then eventually did anyway so she could get the job. very believable), but they're a little too grounded to go full on Q Anon. (that's the domain of FVD, who had their moment but are now mostly irrelevant because of how deeply their leader got drawn into the conspiracy spiral. you can forget about the FVD now, they won't be important.)

VVD, mainstream right/center-right party (the liberals, but in a political context where that puts them firmly on the right), who were the largest party for a decade and a half until the last elections. i don't agree with them, i would never ever vote for them, they've done a lot of things wrong and left a legacy of problems they created and never solved, but under mark rutte (during that decade and a half) they were a very stabilizing force, so at least there was that. rutte left to become secretary general of NATO prior to the last elections (which meant we were finally rid of him), and the VVD is now headed by dilan yeşilgöz, who has been pushing them farther right to keep up with the PVV. they're not insane (currently), and they can be reasoned with, but they will really try to give tax cuts to the rich.

NSC (new social contract), a party quite literally so new that it didn't exist before the previous elections, and which won a stupid number of votes considering it wasn't entirely clear what they stood for. they positioned themselves as the party that cares about the constitution, and during the coalition forming process they kept asking concerned questions about the constitutionality of the PVV's proposals, and then they joined this coalition anyway. their leader and THE guy everyone was voting for the NSC for, pieter omtzigt, has been in a constant struggle with burnout and has now (probably?) left national politics for good (after leaving and coming back and leaving and coming back). things do not look good for the NSC.

BBB, the farmer's party. those words may sound sympathetic at first glance, but in reality they're a right-wing mostly single-issue party concerned with farmer's rights in a way that means they're very against, uh. nature. or animal rights. or doing anything to prevent climate change. this may not sound like an obvious party to draw votes, but for a tiny overpopulated country the netherlands does far more farming than you might think. they're a relatively new party but they have a strong core base of supporters.

genuinely, i think what this lineup really says about voters is that (like in so many places around the world) they want the government to take care of people, they want to feel supported, they want everything the left wants, but they keep trying to find it in right-wing parties, several of which have no clue what they're doing beyond shouting things that sound good and/or easy. out of these three only the VVD had any experience whatsoever at governing a country, the NSC barely existed yet, the BBB only really cares about one thing, and the PVV is great at playing opposition but you can't have it both ways. this was never going to work, and everyone knew it, even the people in these parties who were pretending that they might get something done.

now. when discussing him in an international context wilders frequently gets called the dutch trump, and i get why, and it's a decent enough shorthand, and they do align in being destructive unbearable racist anti-immigration populist right-wingers, but it's also, just. not really true at all. wilders has a firm grip on the PVV because he built it, and while trump is an idiot (a dangerous one! a powerful one! but an idiot), wilders is not, and he's been in politics since 1990, and in national politics as the head of his PVV since 2004. he's been here, spewing versions of the shit he's spewing now, and right now he's riding the wave.

and crucially, wilders doesn't get compared to trump a lot in his own country. that's not a thing in the mainstream dutch discourse around him, so the mess trump is currently making of the US doesn't stick to wilders in the way it seemed to haunt the right wing in the recent canadian and australian elections, and unless someone's campaign strategy changes that i don't think that will have much of an impact here.

also: it's important to note that the PVV is definitely a right-wing party, but it's not always that simple and they are, on a technical level, left on some social issues. they want to lower the cost of healthcare insurance (which is mandatory over here. everyone has it, but even so not all insurance is equal, and it's pricey), they were trying to push a rent freeze before the government collapsed (and their proposal was shoddy and about to get struck down, but in theory this could have been a good thing). and these kinds of things sound nice! it's just that wilders wants them for white people, and preferably no one else - but they have and will make people vote for him (sometimes without thinking too much about the racism), because he presents himself as a man who will say what no one else is saying AND cares about the cost of your groceries. during a debate in the runup to the last elections there was a confrontation between wilders and the leader of two left-wing parties which recently joined forces (GL-PvdA, THE mainstream left right now. we'll get to them), in which they were essentially saying they had the same stance on lowering healthcare insurance costs, but wilders was promising radical (impossible) change and the GL-PvdA leader was presenting an actual, reasoned, potentially workable plan that involved several steps. wilders came out on top in this debate even though he absolutely shouldn't have (and later, after the elections, he would shift to more or less parroting the GL-PvdA leader's "it's more complicated than that" stance, because it is more complicated than that), which is just a distilled version of the problem everywhere right now, i guess, because magical sudden solutions sound more attractive upfront than reality, and only certain people are willing to tell those pretty lies.

and finally, while he's been around all this time, he and his PVV have never been in government. they got very close once in 2010-2012 during the VVD-led Rutte I cabinet, when they were a kind of semi-part of the coalition (a very culturally dutch construction, in so many ways), but this ended so badly that nobody even wanted to consider working with them since then, not even on the mainstream right. the VVD (and everyone else, but crucially the VVD, who kept getting the lead in coalition talks) had an unofficial boycot in place against working with them, which essentially left them dead in the water - you can vote for the PVV, but you know up front that it's not getting them anything but opposition seats.

which brings me to the thing that happened last time to give the PVV the unexpected boost they got. so, it's 2023, the cabinet led by mark rutte (of the VVD, then the largest party. this was Rutte IV, so his fourth turn as prime minister) toppled over something they called an asylum crisis (so, over immigration). this was mostly the VVD at work, who were hoping to gain votes with their stance on the issues in a next election.

but who is even louder and meaner about immigration than the VVD? the PVV! so wilders was doing alright anyway, this was perfect for him (adding some to the incremental growth of the far right he could have counted on anyway), but then rutte (finally) left dutch politics, and the VVD leadership was passed to yeşilgöz. yeşilgöz, in an attempt to show that she's doing "new" and "different" politics (a lot of people had gotten tired of mark rutte) and also to appease PVV voters, says that she doesn't rule out working with anyone, even the PVV.

this, now, suddenly meant the PVV was a viable option again. instead of drawing votes for the VVD because they're so cool and chill and also totally tough on immigration, it had the opposite effect of drawing votes for the PVV because they're a Real Political Party! so they more than doubled their seats, going over what they were projected to get in votes, and getting easily their highest number of votes ever. the VVD meanwhile did worse than expected (they had been going strong for the previous 15 years, after all) and then suddenly yeşilgöz had to backpaddle and announce that she wouldn't stand for a prime minister wilders, which is how we wound up with a very odd situation in which wilders (annoyed) kept attacking a guy HE put in the prime minister seat.

so looking ahead now, for these next elections wilders is 100% hoping to somehow get another shot at being prime minister. he wants to grow the PVV even further, but looking at current polling numbers (which mean nothing yet. but are nonetheless all we have) that wouldn't be happening. they'd still come out as the biggest, but they might lose a few seats, and that's not getting wilders in a better spot than where he was. also, while he was of course trying to present as reasonable during the coalition talks, he showed his true (entirely known and expected) colors later on, so whatever his voters or the general population may think, politicians from other parties are supremely annoyed with him (once again).

(important bleak sidenote: this could also be what wilders wants. either he wins more seats, and then they Have to take him seriously and let him be prime minister, or he doesn't, and then he doesn't get to be a part of the next government, and he gets to go back to yelling very loudly about everything everyone else is doing wrong, which is his strong suit anyway. there are no real bad outcomes for him here, probably. that's the bad news (for everyone else).)

meanwhile the VVD would maybe gain some in new elections right now, maybe stay where they are; BBB would shrink a bit (but they're nowhere near those other two in size anyway), and the NSC, crucially, would essentially disappear off the map. this has happened before - something new pops up, dutch voters flock to it in hopes of positive change, nothing really changes and they all flock to the next newest thing/return to more well-known lettersoup acronyms - and it will probably happen again. many NSC voters came from the CDA, the christian democrats, a conservative but centrist party. the CDA had an extremely deep low point in the last elections (omtzigt, who started the NSC, came from CDA, and a lot of CDA voters had also hopped over to BBB already. CDA used to be big, but this was a gradual process of erosion over many elections), and came out with only 5 seats, but they're still a well-known name and i (and current polls) expect them to do much better this time. many former NSC voters will probably go back to CDA. which could be good? at the very least, the CDA is established and, like, knows who they are.

but! i also honestly think the NSC looked more left-leaning to many voters than it was, due to omtzigt's reputation as Man Who Stands Up For The Little Guy (there's a particular political scandal around welfare benefits he had a hand in uncovering that earned him this reputation, which gained him a lot of goodwill. but i think what he really stood for is transparency, not progressive social politics), so who knows, a few of those NSC votes could land left of center, IF the left plays their cards right.

and, okay, the left. there are plenty of parties on the left, of many types, but the most interesting development and by far the biggest and most relevant player on the left right now is the GL-PvdA united left. GL (groenlinks) is the green left, which is what you would expect it to be, and they've never been huge nationally but they're growing. this is where my vote usually lands. PvdA is the labour party, and they have a very long history and traditionally used to draw in a major share of votes (we had a PvdA prime minister when i was born. take me back), but in the last two elections which they took part in on their own they did very badly (like, they lost 29 seats between 2012 and 2017, and then never gained any since, leaving them in single digits. because, and this is a fun one, they were in a deeply ill-advised coalition with the VVD, and none of their voters liked that), and then in 2023 GL and PvdA (both small but present, and neither of them actually tiny) joined forces, and lured frans timmermans back from european politics. he was already a well-known face, and he's strong in this position and i like him and he's saying the right things (we have to stop moving to the right - we have to make center parties want to lean into the left instead), though it does have to be said that he's not very exciting. in an ideal situation, some fresh young face would suddenly rise up through the ranks in one of these parties, but until that happens timmermans will do - and these two parties together DID pull votes in the last election. polls currently have them growing a bit, keeping ahead of the VVD even. because, okay. numbers.

there are currently 15 different parties with at least one seat in parliament (de tweede kamer. which only has 150 seats), and that's not counting parties that were on the voting ticket but didn't make the cut (enough votes for at least 1 seat. so, the lowest cut-off point possible without chopping people in half), so there's plenty to choose! the PVV may be the largest right now, but they still have only 37 seats out of 150 total, which is a fuckton (and 20 more than they had pre-2023) but also, importantly, still MILES from achieving a majority and letting them just fuck around and do whatever they want. that's what wilders would want, obviously, but it's just not how dutch politics works, because there has never been a government in my lifetime (or my dad's, for that matter) that wasn't a complicated union of at least two, far more typically three or four different parties in order to actually get the seats for a majority in parliament. this is a good thing! one could argue there are currently far too many tiny parties active in the dutch political landscape, and one would not be entirely wrong, but i would still rather have this splintering than a consolidation into a political system with only two real options (i'm not naming any names, US americans, don't worry).

so in actual numbers: out of the 150 total the VVD holds 24 seats currently, NSC 20, and BBB 7. (before the PVV left, the coalition had 88 seats total, with the remaining 62 split across 11 opposition parties.) but in between the right-wing PVV and VVD, there's GL-PvdA, who received the second largest share of votes and therefore seats, at 25. note that they beat the VVD with this! this was a growth of 8 seats versus GL and PvdA results counted up (because they were still operating independently then) in the elections prior to the last. they were never going to join talks with the PVV (this is ALSO a good thing), for so many reasons, but they are there! these 25 seats were a victory in their own right! D66 is a centrist party that's in fifth spot with 9 seats. the socialist party SP has 5 seats (which may not sound like much, and it isn't, but it's still 5 clearly left wing people in parliament), the PvdD (party for animals), initially a single-issue animal rights party but now a broader, general left and ecological party, has 3 seats. VOLT is a (center-?)left pro-EU party with 2 seats (note that being far right in europe essentially always means being anti-EU). it's hard to say how many seats all left-wing parties hold if you count them up because it's hard to say which parties are the left wing once you get into the weeds (DENK has 2 seats and is pro immigrant minority rights! but terrible on LGBTQ issues), but it's not nothing, and once again, there is so!!! much!!! to choose from!!!

people just need to, like. stop voting against their own interests because some guy yelled the loudest and made the most impossible but pretty claims.

so, in summary: PVV bad. PVV hoping for more growth, but unlikely to get it, which may put them back in opposition seats, which also could be right where they want to be, but at the very least that would mean we wouldn't have the PVV governing the country. it would probably be tough to get a majority government that's entirely left-wing, so i wouldn't hope for that, but the left may do okay in the next elections and GL-PvdA will hopefully remain at least in the top 3 largest parties. the VVD is around, trying to figure things out. there is still, in the middle of all this splintering and shifting towards extremes, something of a political center, which is also good. there are so many parties with so much to lose and often such different interests that the election may be held in late october of 2025, but it would not surprise me (or probably anyone) in the least if we only had an actual new government in summer of 2026 at the earliest.

or an even shorter summary: things bad; things could be worse; i will stubbornly continue to hope for them not to be. fingers crossed emoji, fingers crossed emoji, fingers crossed emoji ten more times.

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a few of the most recent developments because i took so long to get this posted: yeşilgöz announced yesterday that the VVD wouldn't consider working with the PVV again because they were "irresponsible" and "unreliable" from day one. fork found in kitchen, but sometimes it takes two years and a doomed coalition to remember what a fork is, i guess. (sunnier take: at least now we know, and if the VVD sticks to its guns on this, there's a high chance it would get nigh impossible for the PVV to drum up a feasible majority coalition, unless something very weird happens. there are unlikely to be a lot of other big players on the right (especially if the NSC melts like cotton candy being washed by a raccoon), and overall this would point towards a center-right coalition at worst, or possibly something much weirder (left-right cooperation? historically bad for the left, so that's scary, but who knows).)

meanwhile, the remaining coalition parties are squabbling over who gets to fill the empty ministerial seat on immigration (left behind when the PVV exited - all of their ministers left, so those ministries need temporary heads), because all three of them want to be the ones who get to say they're Tough On Immigration, and they're Taking Charge, etcetera. they wouldn't even really have to solve any of the current problems because this cabinet is just sitting it out until there's a new one after the next elections. it's win-win!