A Hard Right Turn

Thursday, May 16, 2002
After the most dramatic political campaign period the Dutch have ever known, Wednesday's elections ended in a total rout for all three parties who made up the the managerial left-right coalition of Labor Party Prime Minister Wim Kok for the last eight years. The List Pim Fortuyn, whose flamboyant leader and guiding light was assassinated on May 6, came from nowhere to garner 26 seats, making it the second biggest force in the 150-member Second Chamber of parliament. Party spokesman Mat Herben, standing beside a larger-than-life portrait of Fortuyn holding his beloved lapdogs, lamented that "there is no Pim to bear this on his shoulders," but vowed that the party would push his populist, anti-immigration policies from within a new government.

The bigger surprise was the exceptionally strong showing of the center right Christian Democrats, who landed 43 seats under their own new but less flamboyant leader, Jan Peter Balkenende. Though the CDA has been part of most governments in the Netherlands' post-war history, it has been in opposition for the last eight years. That, no doubt, helped it avoid the fate of the other mainstream parties. "The trust in the CDA has returned," he said. "This is a result we had not expected. Great. But I also see the great responsibility that now rests upon us." The 45-year-old former university lecturer, who took on the leadership of his party only nine months ago, is likely to be the next prime minister of the Netherlands — but not before he tackles the difficult process of building a coalition.

Nursing the deepest political wounds is the Dutch Labor Party, whose share of parliamentary seats was almost halved, from 45 to 23 seats. Party leader Ad Melkert drew the inevitable consequences and announced in an emotional speech in Amsterdam's Paradiso Club that he was laying down the leadership. "A cold wind is blowing through Europe," he said, but as recent electoral results in Denmark and France indicate, for no one does it blow colder than for the traditional social democrats. The wounded party is expected to choose a new leader, and both major candidates for the post, Dick Benschop and Wouter Bos, said they were steeled to the challenge of renewing the party structures and political content in opposition.

The right-liberal VVD also bore the lashings of an electorate bent on rejecting the status quo, losing 15 seats to a position of parity with its erstwhile coalition partner, the Labor Party, with 23 seats. With party leader Hans Dijkstal signalling his intention to resign that post, his likely successor, outgoing Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm, faces a difficult choice of whether to enter government or remain in opposition. The Christian Democrats and List Pim Fortuyn together cannot muster a majority in parliament, and the VVD is considered the most likely grouping to put the right over the top. But past coalitions between the Christian Democrats and the VVD have not always been comfortable, and the wild card of the inexperienced and still leaderless List Fortuyn makes that equation even more fraught with uncertainty. European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, a former VVD leader, predicted on election night that the instability in parliament could lead to new elections within a year.

For now, however, the Dutch have clearly opted for a right-wing government, but it is unlikely to pursue the harshly anti-immigrant policies that helped elevate the late Fortuyn to political prominence. Balkenende vowed on election night to pursue "national unity" and to move quickly on putting a government together. Achieving both those goals with the untested figures that Fortuyn collected behind him will be difficult. But the Dutch electorate trumpeted its taste for change, and it expects a government more given to straight-talking and less to the backroom horsetrading that has so long characterized Dutch politics.