This is the monthly archive for February 2010.
28 February 2010
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Balkenende, Bos, CU, Cohen, D66, Eurlings, Halsema, Immigrants, Kant, Minor parties, PVV, Pechtold, Polls, Rouvoet, Rutte, Verdonk, Verhagen, Wilders
Some small fry that might be of interest to political observers:
It’s time to take a look at some official elections polls. In the table below I’ve repeated the most recent polls of Peil.nl and the Politieke Barometer (try translating that one for yourself). The third Dutch pollster, TNS NIPO, doesn’t seem to have started publishing parliament election polls yet.
A few American readers confessed confusion over the issues and didn’t understand my use of the word “liberal.” Exactly how do policies of Dutch parties compare to the Democrats and Republicans in the US? This entry tries to give some anwers to those questions.
I’m not going to say much about the programme of the Dutch parties; that’s mostly because I want to wait for the publication of the party programmes which is expected somewhere in April. Instead I’ll do a rough comparison of the two US political parties to the Dutch situation.
25 February 2010
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Balkenende, Bos, CDA, Cohen, Eurlings, PVV, Polls, PvdA, Wilders
Oh my, Peil.nl has published more polls, and they consistently show that Bos’s gamble is still paying off.
25 February 2010
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Balkenende, CDA, CU, Eurlings, Rouvoet
Some small fry that might be interesting to political observers:
The Dutch nine-to-twelve-party system is sometimes hard to understand for foreigners; especially when the small parties come into play. Therefore I’m running a mini-series that treats all eleven parties that stand a decent chance of getting seats in the upcoming elections. We’ll go from largest to smallest.
Today we’ll continue with the second-largest Dutch party, the PvdA.
Prime minister Balkenende continues to have an unlucky hand. Today, parliament chairwoman Verbeet (PvdA) rejected his proposal to discuss exactly which political issues are too sensitive to be discussed by government.
I have published the first article in my series: The rules of the game. It takes a look at elections, parliament, government, and rise and fall of a government. It treats a few crucial rules you need to know before we start talking about Dutch political history.
I still have seven such articles more-or-less ready for publication; the next one will be published in a week.
The Queen has just asked prime minister Balkenende to arrange new elections on Wednesday 9th of June. Also, there will be no new government formed to bridge the gap between now and instating a new government.
The election date is not unexpected; late May or early June was already the timeframe all parties supported. Still, for me personally it's a bummer since I will be on holiday in Venice on that day and will not be able to cover election day as much as I'd hoped.
The Dutch nine-to-twelve-party system is sometimes hard to understand for foreigners; especially when the small parties come into play. Therefore I’m going to run a mini-series that treats all eleven parties that stand a decent chance of getting seats in the upcoming elections. We’ll go from largest to smallest.
Today we’ll start with the largest Dutch party, the CDA.
22 February 2010
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Balkenende, Bos, CDA, Coalitions, Eurlings, Polls, PvdA, Wilders
Yesterday the first poll (PDF) since the fall of government was released, and broadly speaking it shows that Bos’s gamble is paying off — for now. The Dutch voters agree with him on both the policy and the politics side, and the PvdA is gaining seats once more.
The Balkenende IV government (i.e. the fourth government that Balkenende (CDA) was prime minister of) was formed three years ago and consists of centre-right CDA (christian-democrats), centre-left PvdA (Labour), and orthodox-protestant left-leaning CU (Union of Christians). Yesterday evening the PvdA ministers resigned over a conflict about the continuing Dutch military presence in the Afghan province of Uruzgan.
In a week and a half local elections will be held, and the PvdA was slated to lose a lot of seats everywhere. PvdA party leader and finance minister Bos clearly hopes to stem the electoral tide by his resignation, and he might well be right.
This is the political blog of Peter-Paul Koch, mobile platform strategist, consultant, and trainer, in Amsterdam. It’s a hobby blog where he follows Dutch politics for the benefit of those twelve foreigners that are interested in such matters, as well as his Dutch readers.
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