HAGUE LETTER:Local elections rarely create much of a stir, but this time they could set off a chain reaction leading to the collapse of the government, writes PETER CLUSKEY
AFTER TAKING an extraordinary four months to finally form a new government last October, Holland goes to the polls again on March 2nd in provincial elections which could ultimately bring prime minister Mark Rutte’s centre-right coalition tumbling back down.
Elections to the country’s 12 provincial councils are not usually headline news here, with turnout typically less than 50 per cent. This time though is different, not because of any newfound interest in Dutch local democracy but because of the impact the results will have on the senate elections that follow in May.
The fact is that Rutte’s minority government of the Liberals and the Christian Democrats, supported from the wings by Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party, has been struggling – particularly in the Senate, where it does not command a majority.
Just four months into its four-year term, the absence of that majority has already forced the government to delay temporarily plans to increase VAT on theatre tickets – a minor embarrassment, but very likely a taste of worse to come.
In broad political terms, the fear is that if cabinet proposals approved by parliament begin being routinely delayed and voted down by a hostile Senate, an already fragile coalition government will quickly become utterly unworkable.
The closest call so far was in December, when the Senate only narrowly approved an economically crucial package of tax measures aimed at reducing the country’s budget deficit.
All the main parties acknowledge the danger. The Liberals, for instance, say that for the first time they are approaching provincial elections with a national campaign, with a high profile in the key debates reserved for Loek Hermans, who leads the party in the Senate.
“The important thing is to make sure that the cabinet can make progress over the next four years,” says the Liberals’ campaign leader, Charlie Aptroot. “And the reality is that we need a majority in the Senate to ensure that.”
At the same time, the Christian Democrats’ campaign manager, Michael Sijborn, asked what would happen if that majority continued to elude them, would reply only: “Then life will be more difficult.”
In a heated TV debate on Wednesday evening, it was left to the leader of the Green Left (Groen Links) party, Jolande Sap, to say what both main government parties have so far failed to acknowledge – that if the coalition fails to secure its majority, it should call a new general election.
Given the marathon nature of the last general election, a re-run so soon would be hugely unpopular with the public. An admittedly unscientific straw poll by The Irish Times on the streets of The Hague yesterday found eight out of 10 opposed. And the mainstream parties know that they will be the ones to suffer, and the more right-wing parties the ones to gain, if the government does collapse.
The connection between the 12 provincial councils and the Senate is simple. The 564 members of the councils elect the 75 members of the Senate. And so once polling has closed on March 2nd the outcome of the Senate elections on May 23rd is essentially predetermined.
As things stand, the Christian Democrats have 21 Senate seats and the Liberals 14, while Wilders’s Freedom Party has no seats in the upper house but is fielding candidates in every province in the provincial elections with the aim of remedying that. That strategy may well work.
To hold together, and to achieve a workable majority when the new Senate is sworn in on June 1st, the government parties plus Wilders must win 38 of the 75 seats.
The most comforting news so far for Rutte came in a poll last week which, remarkably, gave the three parties exactly that number of seats – 17 for the Liberals, 11 for the Freedom Party and 10 for the Christian Democrats.
Ironically though, where the Liberals and Christian Democrats will find little comfort in the longer term is in the fact that such a result would catapult Geert Wilders from having no voice in the Senate to leading its second largest party, well positioned to make even further gains in future.
If it seems unlikely that a crack in the dam of the provincial elections could lead to a deluge in the Senate which could wash away the government, it has in fact happened before – not once but twice.
It’s a matter of historical fact that provincial elections indirectly brought down two postwar cabinets, in 1958 and again in 1982. That’s why at the parties’ headquarters in The Hague, there is no sign of complacency. The Dutch electorate has form here.