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[Analysis] Will Frans Timmermans be the next Dutch PM on Wednesday?
(euobserver.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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Betteridge's law of headlines, right?
Probably. I'm voting for them (not Timmermans himself, but no. 17 on the party's list as a way to signal I'm less than thrilled with how NL responded to Israel), but am doubtful we'll finally get a government I'm mostly content with. It's been since the pre Balkenende days (which goes back to the turn of the century).
We've had a couple times CDA (Christian party) followed by a really long time under VVD (right wing, led by Rutte), with left being mostly of secondary importance.
As of now there's too many parties polling high, old and new, to really make a good educated guess. VVD, PVV (right-wing, anti islam) and NSC (a new party led by a former CDA member) are all big enough to keep a close eye on.
For someone on the left none of these engender any sort of hope for the country. All would like to close off the borders, none really productively deal with the gap between rich and poor, none really deal with the climate catastrophe.
The (also new) party after these guys is the BBB, which literally is a party of angry farmers that don't want to get their livelihood impacted by climate reductions. Understandable from their perspective, but even worse climate wise. Their foreign policy isn't that much better.
Geert is the guy with the funny hair.
The paywall makes it hard to give a definitive answer
It's a coinflip. There are currently three parties that have the chance to be the most voted one according to the most recent polls: VVD, NSC and PvdA-GL. If PvdA-GL comes out on top, there is a chance for them to form a coalition with all the left-wing parties and one centre party. According to surveys most leftist Dutch people are aware of this and consider a tactical vote for PvdA-GL to get a more left leaning government.
I don't think there's a big-enough centre party that would go for that, and I don't think that's what GL-PvdA is aiming for either. Rather, if they don't come out on top, what's likely to happen is that the right and centre-right parties would try (and probably succeed) to form a coalition together. If they do come out on top, GL-PvdA will instead replace one or two of those parties in that coalition, going for something like GL-PvdA/VVD/NSC.
And then, of course, the question is what will happen to them in the elections after that. But I'm sure the PvdA is very aware of what might happen.
NSC might be up for it. A colleague told me, that the PvdA did not take the option of a left-leaning coalition with a center party in the past, so they might not this time around either.
They might be, but the signs so far have not been in that direction: here's Omtzigt saying he'd rather have a right-wing minority government over GL-PvdA, and here's him playing up how hard he thinks it would be to govern with them.
I'd be interested in knowing which coalition your colleague is thinking of, but when coalition negotiations don't work out, it's pretty much impossible to point fingers to a specific party - clearly none of the parties were prepared to give more concessions.
Thank you. A left shift would be really nice.