Posts in the Formation category.
A surprise at the start of this week: informer Edith Schippers (VVD) resigned and parliament appointed former vice-chairman of the Council of State, former informer, and former advisor of Queen Beatrix, Herman Tjeenk Willink (PvdA) as her successor. In case his titles aren’t clear enough: he’s considered a wise statesman who’s above the current political fray.
The formation of the new government has reached a very vague stage where nobody is certain what is going to happen.
Just in: the negotiations between VVD, CDA, D66, and GL have failed. I assume that means that CU will be swapped in for GL. The question is who’s going to get the blame.
The formation discussions are continuing slowly. Nobody expects to have anything to say for the next few weeks, and at the request of Klaver (GL) Fridays are non-negotiation days so he can spend time with his small children. I’m not sure how much the other parties like this, but they have agreed to it. Everybody is in let’s-take-this-easy mode.
Meanwhile, some snippets that might be of interest:
Since Dutch politics are boring and predictable right now, let’s also take a look at some other occurrences.
24 March 2017
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DENK, Election results, Formation, FvD, Van der Staaij, Wilders
A wrap-up of this week. None of these points are terribly important, but they show that Dutch politics are returning to their stable, somewhat boring, default status after the highs of internationally-covered elections.
There’s not a great deal of news about the formation. Scout Schippers, who will likely be bumped up to informer soon, will talk with VVD, CDA, D66, and GL tomorrow. She also asked parliament for more time, which she’ll likely get.
Today the government formation officially started. “Scout” Edith Schippers (VVD) talked to all thirteen party leaders in order to find out which coalitions they deemed most logical after the elections. Their replies are being shared openly, and give a first indication as to what’s going to happen.
Well, it seems VVD leader Rutte is no longer rejecting the Purple-Plus VVD+PvdA+D66+GL coalition. Commentators expect the next few days of Tjeenk Willink’s informership to be spent on exploring this possibility further.
My apologies for not posting more; I’m busy busy. The politicians are busy busy, too, rejecting coalitions faster than the eye can follow.
Informer Rosenthal has announced that he sees no possibility of getting a right-wing government. The CDA wants VVD and PVV to reach an agreement first, while the PVV demands that all three parties participate in the negotiations.
The negotiations for a right-wing VVD+PVV+CDA government have hardly gone on for a few days, and the participants are already positioning themselves to blame someone else if they fail. Right now Wilders is in a better position in the blame game, and that could be dangerous.
Well, it seems there will be negotiations for a right-wing coalition. As regular readers know I applaud this: let Wilders show how much (or little) interested in governing he is.
Political custom dictates that just after the elections all party leaders deplore the fact that the forming of a stable coalition is so very very difficult. Usually that means that they can’t (easily) form the coalition of their choice, but in general they are able to find a reasonable option within two to three weeks (although the formal negotiations take longer).
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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