Aftermath of recent Dutch elections won by Skipper Wilders
-by Toon Janssen
Results of November 23 snap elections in The Netherlands were a big hit. Fourth Mark Rutte ruling cabinet collapsed in July on proposed stricter migration issues by his center right VVD party. Teflon Rutte, nickname, didn’t run again for PM himself this time, after a policy of much detested liberalization and mismanagement over more than 12 years. Dilan Yesilgoz, of Turkish Kurdish descent and born in Ankara, took over party leadership to run. That didn’t do the liberals any good; they lost! [Note to American readers: In Europe, the political term "liberal" typically refers to someone who prioritizes individual liberties and limited government, encompassing some aspects of American "conservative" thinking on government.]
Election results were flabbergasting indeed, PVV (Freedom Party) +20 with now 37 seats in the 150 seats House, GLPVDA (Greens + Socialists) +8 with 25 seats, VVD (rightwing liberals) -10 with 24, the newly established NSC of Pieter Omtzigt (New Social Contract) from 0 to +20, D66 (enlightened liberals) lost 15 seats and came out with 9, BBB (Farmers Party) from 1 to 7, and CDA (Christian Democrats) minus 10 to 5. In fact there were in total 26 parties with more than a thousand candidates! Since the PVV, a one-man party without any other members, won you might wonder how come Wilders didn’t declare himself the new Prime Minister instantly. Well, this all has to do with finding the right coalition partners to get the 76 seats needed. Not that easy a job at all, since parties involved will need to add water to the wine. Let me kindly inform you about Skipper Wilders and his scheming in Dutch politics.
In 1980, at the age of 17 and before entering politics, Geert Wilders worked in Israel for some years in a mosjav, a cooperative farming settlement, where he experienced that ‘the country was fighting for its right to exist, chasing away infiltrators operating from Jordan who flooded our mosjav-valley’. He turned into a firm supporter of the Israeli Zionist politics and lifestyle and, was crazy about Jewish women. With the money he earned, Geert travelled through Arabian countries in the region, where he was shocked by the gross oppression of the populations by undemocratic despots.
He started his political career in 1989 by joining VVD and soon became their speechwriter as well as policy officer specialized in foreign affairs concerning Israel, the Middle East and Iran. He pictured countries like Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria as cradles of intolerance, extremism and terrorism, being ‘the axis of evil, supporting Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad’. Support for these views in the House of Representatives as a liberal VVD member was little, despite requested emergency debates about Muslim fundamentalism in the Netherlands as well and repeated warnings for the high pace of radicalization.
Support in his own party was also minimal; he was judged as controversial with polarizing positions. The VVD party needed an uplift, Wilders argued, be it an urgent move ‘way more to the right to be no longer that damned social liberal party that had moved way too much to the left, pampering Muslims’. His targets broadened gradually and his interests spread over a wide area. To mention some: halving expenditure on development cooperation, no longer joining forces with left-wing parties, increase of speed limits on highways, a much wanted Nexit, less Brussels, scaling back on Schengen, a furious blockade of Turkey’s candidacy for EU-membership (‘I like headscarves raw’), an open pledge for less Moroccans (‘we can arrange that’), a headscarf tax and, he broke a lance for the position of ethnic Hungarians in Eastern European countries like Romania, Serbia and Ukraine (being married to the Hungarian diplomat Krisztina Marfai). Soon after, September 2nd 2004 it came to a clash; Wilders left the party, stayed as one-man faction in the House, meanwhile working on founding his own PVV, resulting in 9 seats in 2006 elections. His focus on Muslim matters broadened with the 17 minute documentary production Fitna (Arabic for trial) in 2008, a compilation about the Qur’an that boosted threats to his person in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia. Things worsened when he started organizing cartoon rallies depicting Allah, the ultimate offence in Muslim religion, but in Wilders’ view they just expressed freedom of speech. It all resulted in unbridled safety precautions in his public and private life as well as nervousness among other national politicians and artists.
Meanwhile, Wilders focused more and more on nationalist and populist gut feelings, that grew into crown jewels of his self-declared people’s party. At press conferences he claimed to be leading in the field of issues like migration (‘less is more’), climate (‘climate change was always there and just another left-wing hobby’), and economy. Ingrid and Henk were his favorite archetypes, ‘people who don’t get it as a gift’, who pay the price for a failing government, get caught by everyone and are ignored by the political elite. ‘They have the right to a safer country, a Dutch the Netherlands with Dutchmen first’. Islamization (‘they come in waves by the thousands’) limits Ingrid and Henk’s freedom and undermines lots of other aspects like health care, education, housing, employment and the economy, was the PVV ideology. The party platform stood for lots of populist changes; let me just mention some:
State pension age back to 65
abolition of VAT (tax) on food
lower rents and higher rental allowances
minimum wage increase
smaller classes in education
dental care in the basic package
lower excise duty and VAT on energy bills
speed limit on highways increase (people can drive faster)
In short all tasty sweets for people, for the average Dutchman ‘who’s having real tough times’. No surprise his opponents wondered about the financial substantiation of the wish list and argued for thorough calculation by the Treasury or Central Planning Bureau. But Wilders, specializing in hanging answers in the mist, got away with that. Climate fund? Scrap it! Nitrogen-fund? Scrap it! Development aid? Stop it? National channeling? Get away with that, ‘their journalists are tuig van de richel’ ( Dutch for scum)! Taxes? Lower them all, ‘no lower them all except one, the royal family must also become liable for taxes’. No surprise PVV grew bigger and bigger, much to the pleasure of Henk and Ingrid, his cooked out archetypes, with a skipper having access to an inexhaustible treasure chest. Polarization in the Netherlands grew bigger and bigger meanwhile, with a heavily guarded Wilders in the opposition benches of the House of Representatives, and elsewhere.
So now back to the latest 2023 elections. After the collapse of the Rutte government, on the issue of after-traveler quota, a new party leader showed up, as mentioned before, Dilan Yesilgoz. Once in party office miscalculations started, since VVD mastodons figured a strategy taking over points from the PVV program would work to beat PVV. They reasoned, ‘when it’s true that people feel blocked and threatened by newcomers, and our party takes over PVV positions regarding asylum seekers and migration, there will no longer be a reason for voters to choose the Wilders option’. In VVD salons, Wilders’ ideas became salon-ready and the idea took ground to make a next coalition with a ‘milder Wilders, what great pun’. Precisely on this point VVD mastodons dug their graves, since why would voters opt for a copy if they can also go for the original.
As a result VVD went down 10 seats while PVV won 20. ‘The genie came out of spokeswoman Yesilgoz’s bottle’, Dutch media informed people, and you might wonder how come she did this. She knew Wilders very well as an excellent debater over the years, as a prize winner in plain language, being chosen Politician of the Year in 2007, 2010, 2013, 2015 and 16. She knew him as great in oneliners, as one that can kick the devil on the tail, as one who admires Donald Duck and Trump, loves Henk and Ingrid, and recently declared ‘to be a decent unifying PM for all national citizens, to be the cooperative guy that won and… unites’. She should have known once given a chance he would seize the opportunity, that he won’t ever let him be pushed into the corner.
There also was another aspect to the national election campaign worth mentioning. National TV Channels in the Netherlands have a public task, one that should go beyond ratings and scoring. However, on the Gooische mattress, synonym for public channels that have the city Hilversum as headquarters, the idea floated up that scoring guarantees quality, the more viewers the better the program. In the media tension counted, according to program makers, who uses the best bag of tricks, who’s the schmuck? Elections climaxed into a standard game with societal relevance as a non-issue. Financial feasibility? ‘Oh, that’s boring, get away with thorough journalism based on research’. There were polls showing constantly who was hot and who was not and the influential indicators and opinion makers went along with it completely, ‘ Yes, with a Milder Wilders there’s more fun since the Donalds are around, mind you’ they reasoned, ‘he is not that bad a guy after all, you know that? And oh, when Hungarian PM Victor Orban was the first foreign politician to congratulate him on the victory, oh that says nothing’, influencers were putting forward, ‘since his wife is from Hungarian descent, that’s what it was all about. Wilders? He will be sure be fun, things will definitely change but with he will be a milder version of himself’.
It's not just Victor Orban who feels completely at ease with Wilders as winner; also Russian Vladimir Putin must be comfortably drooling at the success. ‘This guy is more than just a peroxide blonde, this guy has guts, his winning mood can create a domino-effect’, Putin might think. Hey, this does not come out of the blue, let me put it this way, since after the Crimea annexation in 2014 and MH17 being shot down over eastern Ukraine Geert took off for Moscow to praise Putin on state television. Also he demonstratively stayed away from a Volodymyr Zelensky speech in the Dutch parliament and declared the delivery of F16 aircraft a way ‘to promote Dutch involvement in somebody else’s war’. Also ‘there’s no place for membership for Ukraine in EU and NATO’, according the Dutch election 2023 winner. In Russian propaganda machines Wilders’ victory is a blessing, an important domino stone. Orban in Hungary, Meloni in Italy, Le Pen in France, AfP in Germany, Wilders, and who knows Trump soon to come, the future shines for Putin., He will love it to let the ball do the job.
So now back to my question, will Wilders automatically become prime minister? Well, after reading the article you might guess a coalition government will not be that easy at all. Wilders himself is in the starting block position but will there be partners? VVD opted out, for reason you might guess-- they lost the elections to another competitive player in the liberal field. Yesilgoz was very persistent in her refusal to negotiate; as for now she is licking her wounds. Some mastodons suggested the option to only tolerate a PVV-run coalition however, to not slam the door all the way shut. No surprise, BBB-- let’s say the farmers-- are eager to join; they fish from the same populist pond. In the 75 seats in the Senate they are big with 16 seats, based on elections earlier this year, but in the 150 House, their score is 7 only. D66, nickname VVD-light, will not be that eager since they lost 15 seats, from 24 to 9, and are also busy licking. GLPVDA (Greens and Socialists) were winners with 8 and have 25 in the House, but captain Timmermans was immediately clear with a definite NO:
We do not make a coalitions with a party that excludes Dutch citizens
We don’t cooperate with a one-man party
We don’t join in with violators of the Constitution
We do not support polarizers
The NSC of Piet Omtzigt, the new rising star on the Dutch political stage with +20, wants to be part in Wilders club, ’out of respect for the outcome’, their leader explained. What this will mean in practice is hard to judge, since Omtzigt is an econometrist, great in numbers and numbers behind the comma, and doesn’t like miscalculations, budget overruns, and unconstitutional matters. Recently he declared the PPV program to be in conflict with ‘the rule of law’. As for now it’s very unclear why he doesn’t make a leftist move, since he split from the CDA in the past and was tough on social issues during the Rutte regime as ‘heel biter’, kuitenbijter they say in the Lowlands.
The outcome of speculations is very uncertain. Formation of the Rutte IV-coalition lasted almost a year, so this one might also not be a quickie. The first move Wilders did to find out what parties are open for negotiations was appointing a scout, Gom van Strien, an experienced PVV member of the Senate. This was against the advice of so called insiders to appoint a less involved non-party member. What happened? The day after research journalists, tuig van de richel traditionally much hated by Wilders, found out Gom van Strien was connected with a fraud case concerning his employer, the University of Utrecht. This affair shows finding the right people doing the right job on the right positions will be a tough challenge for the popular Milder Wilders to achieve. Captain Peroxide Blonde called it ‘just another industrial accident’ and Gom left, but many Dutchmen are not amused at all with Wilders ‘having fun messing around’.