Election Day

Election Day here in Holland. I don't get to play along. *sad face* I can vote in municipal elections after five years' residence, but only Dutch citizens get to vote in the general elections. And they do. Voter turnout runs between 75 and 80% for Dutch general elections. (The 56.8% US turnout in 2008 was the highest since 1968. Multiparty system, I'm telling you.)

"Normal" elections are in March on a Wednesday. By "normal," I mean at the end of the four-year maximum term. Parliament (the Tweede Kamer) decides the exact date for the election. This also applies when, as in this case, the ruling coalition loses its ability to lead. That happened in spring, although Parliament has continued to function quite normally in the meantime. "The government has fallen" doesn't mean quite the same thing here.

Elections have to be held with a lead time of around 3 months, to allow for arrangements for non-resident Dutch citizens to vote as well and to allow time for political parties to register candidate lists for the election. Since the government fell in April, that would put elections in the summer. Summer elections are avoided because too many people are on holiday then. That moved them along to September. While elections could have been held last week, Monday 10 September was a big day for NL, as that's when the National budget had to be sent to the EU, so here we are.

As of 8 September, VVD and PvdA would each capture 35 seats of the 150 seats available. This represents an increase for both parties, from 31 and 30, respectively. PVV would drop from 24 seats to 19, being passed by SP who would increase from 15 to 21 seats. The remaining seats would be shared by CDA, D66, CU, GL, SGP, PvdD, and 50 plus.

Nice letters. Who are they? VVD, People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, while far left of the American Republican Party, is towards the right in Dutch politics. They're essentially Libertarians. PvdA, the Worker's Party, is a Democratic Socialist party, pragmatic socialists who look for ways to make the ideas of a social society work in the real world. PVV, Party for Peace and Freedom, is a quasi-socialist party whose central idea is that the enemy of peace and freedom is multi-culturalism. SP, the Socialist Party, is just that.

But wait, none of those is more than half of 150. That's the idea. The party with the most votes has the first chance to form a coalition that does account for more than half of the 150 seats. If they can't, then the second-largest party has the opportunity to present a coalition capable of governing. Mind you, the poll numbers I've shown are four days old.

This is an election about the question of whether austerity on the backs of the populace should be the primary method of paying for the debt created by the cascade triggered by fraudulently rated American bank derivatives, or whether education and healthcare should be preserved at the expense of the wealthy, or better said, where the proper balance is between those two approaches. VVD puts the balance point solely on austerity measures and even cut taxes on the wealthy. PvdA is left-of-center toward preserving social infrastructure. SP is is the polar opposite of VVD on this question.

Today, the voters will speak.

Liberal?

As the US begins in technical earnest the run-up to the Presidential elections, a tiny tutorial on the Dutch political landscape. This grew out of an interview I saw with the Premier-President Rutte, who is a very likable person (open to discussion, calm when challenged, well-spoken, good sense of humor, reasonably good listener) and conservative. The interviewer said to him, "So you're the first Liberal Premier since 1918...." and I thought, "Hmmmmmm?" (Insert Scooby sound.)

Rutte is certainly not the most right-wing figure in Dutch politics, but he's pretty far over there. So why did they say Liberal? After a lengthy explanation from my very-politically-savvy very special person and looking stuff up online (Wiki forever), here's the run-down of the major players, sorted by size with the largest first:

• People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD):  Sort of Libertarian (hence, "Liberal" in Dutch). Pro-private enterprise, pro-personal freedom, in theory. Center-right.
• Labor  Party (PvdA): Social democratic party pushing for inclusion of everyone. Equality is utopia; everyone getting some of what they want is ideal. The state exists to serve the needs of the people. Center-left.
• Party for Freedom (PVV): Anti-muslim, extreme right on foreign affairs. Socialist on economic issues. Extreme right and left-of-center all in one bundle.
• Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA): A pro-religion (not only Christian religion) party that believes the government's role is to help out, but that most of the work of society is to be done by people and the church (mosque, synagogue, etc.). Supports the "integration of minorities" (read: Thou shalt speak no language but Dutch). Center-right but less right than VVD.
• Socialist Party  (SP): More left than PvdA on social issues. More right than PvdA on foreign affairs and working with minorities.
• Democrats 66 (D66): #1 priority is democracy. Huge supporter of direct democracy at all levels for all institutions. Liberal on abortion & euthanasia, left-wing on immigration, right-wing on economics and environment.
• Green-Left (GroenLinks): Green environmentalist, left-wing, multicultural party.

With five other parties represented in Parliament and 43 registered parties not represented in Parliament, there are also, of course, every imaginable flavor of other political stances that one can picture.

The party affiliations are important because each party in Parliament votes all its seats together. Debate in the main body of the Second House is generally a conversation between the leaders (or a representative or representatives) of all the parties, with each leader representing the discussion he or she had separately with his or her affiliates before the combined discussion and continuing to get input from his or her affiliates as the discussion progresses. No one has enough seats to get their way all the time. Rather, the operation of government is a continuous flow of alliances and negotiations, lengthy debates and compromises. The goal is for as many people as possible to get some of what they want. Although elections are scheduled every four years, the Second House can also decide to dissolve itself, if the coalitions on which it is based become unable to function, in which case the elections come sooner than four years. This makes it critical for the parties to play nicely together, as bringing the political institutions to a grinding halt for political purposes only leads to the dissolution of the Parliament and all the legislators having to answer to their electorate. (Insert pointed look directed at the US Congress.)

So Liberal Rutte. That's actually, Libertarian Rutte, in English. Which solves the mystery. The Dutch have not had a Libertarian Premier since 1918. At that time, the Premiership was a rotational role, the chair of the council of ministers. Since 1974, the position has been held by the leader of the largest party in Parliament. The actual function of the Prime Minister wasn't laid down in the constitution until 1983; the Dutch have a Queen, after all. Living Prime Ministers include Piet de Jong (4 years representing the now-defunct Catholic People's Party), Dries van Agt (5 years, CDA), Ruud Lubbers (12 years, CDA), Wim Kok (8 years, PvdA), Jan Peter Balkende (8 years, CDA), and the current PM Mark Rutte (since 2010) (VVD).

A note to the Presidential candidates: The Dutch are watching the American elections closely. They find President Obama to be self-possessed, mature and imposing; he is widely respected in NL. Do try to be Presidential if you would earn the respect of the people of this very politically savvy ally of the US. You're free to say otherwise for the purposes of pandering, but the current President has set a high bar in the arena of international respect.