Instead of posting just another travel story (we are in Langweer, by the way), I thought I'd tell you a bit about the elections we have here today. It's a general election for the lower house of parliament, the 'Tweede Kamer'. Normally, these should take place once every 4 years, but the (coalition) government fell well short of two years in office, in April. Now 5 months seem a long time to wait with holding new elections, but apparently having holidays was more important than getting a government sorted out, so today is the day.
Lyn and I , being Dutch citizens, could actually vote but as the registration process only started early May, our itinerant existence has stood in the way of us registering to exercise our electoral privilege.
Elections here are interesting to say the least. The electoral system, the political landscape and some strange influences on voting behaviour will ensure that the country will end up with a government which few (if any) of its 12.7 million voters actually want, which - I respectfully suggest - is strange in a democracy!
What makes me say this and why?
The short answer is: "an overdose of coalition politics". The country has 21 parties contesting the 150 seats in the lower house today. Thanks to the proportional representation system, of those, 10 are currently represented in parliament, it seems likely that there will be 11 this time around. With this number of parties, it is unavoidable that no single party will get the 76 seats required for a majority so there is a need for a coalition of two or more parties. Now the latest polls (more about polls later), suggest that the two largest parties will get around 35 or 36 seats each, so even those can't form a majority government (the fact that they are very unlikely bedfellows - at least when looking at their manifestos - does not help here at all: think like making a conservative - labour coalition in Britain!). So we need more than two parties, maybe three, four or more. With possibly very small (2 seats) parties as 'kingmakers'. Now here, like everywhere, a political party likes nothing more than being in government, so they will be willing to give up quite a lot of their 'principles' to rule. So much so, that a coalition of those uneasy bedfellows I mentioned is far from unlikely! They just call it 'purple' (what you get when you mix red and blue) and it does not sound as outlandish anymore!
So there you have it: a government that no-one really wants in a very robust democracy!
I read this morning, that 40% of voters still did not know what to vote when they got up this morning. Yet, the parties all published quite detailed and clear manifestos some weeks ago. So it should be possible (if not easy) to make a pretty well founded decision. But it appears that 'what a party stands for' (the manifesto) is not all that important. For the last two weeks, there has been a barrage of interviews (sometimes more like interrogations) and televised debates, which appears to have more influence on the voters than the substance of the party policies. After all, these 'shows' highlight only some of the more crowd-pleasing issues. The polls (there are 4 polling bureau's, which in the last few weeks have published their findings every few days) show sometimes very significant shifts. This appears partly due to the results of the debates and partly as 'poll feedback': many not too well informed voters believe that a party that does well in a poll must be 'a good party'.
Now a lot of the above is - only a little bit - tongue in cheek, but maybe Churchill had a point when he said that 'the best argument against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter'.
We eagerly await the outcome tomorrow. It should be announced sometime during the morning: they use the 'red pencil' voting method and not the 'voting machines', which slows down the counting process a bit.
Then we'll know the composition of the 'Tweede Kamer'. But not of the government itself of course: there will be an awful lot of horse trading required to cobble together a coalition. It seems to be generally expected to take up to three months to complete that process!
In the meantime, next Tuesday is 'budget day', together with the annual opening of parliament and the Queen's speech from the throne.
As the reason for the fall of the previous government was their inability to agree on a budget that satisfied the EU requirement of a shortfall of 3% or less, the budget had to be put together by a 'temporary coalition' (which succeeded to do this in a remarkable short period of a week). But if this 'temporary coalition' has no majority in the new parliament, we may enter even more interesting times......!
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