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Dutch Election Oddities

Netherlands, Dutch, election, Geert Wilders, counting coup, party, parties, political, Freedom Party

There were many strange forces at play in the Netherlands’ elections on Wednesday. In my report, I concentrated on the biggest story, the possibility that Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party might take a huge number of parliamentary seats — though I quoted The Atlantic’s coverage predicting a narrow loss to Mark Rutte’s Liberal Party.

What I did not mention were some of the … oddities.

Did you know that Geert Wilders is the only official member of the Freedom Party?

Did you know that there is a 50+ Party in Holland — to represent folks … in my age bracket?

Irksome. A party organized just for an age group bugs me almost as much as the most extreme elements of Wilders’s anti-​Islamism. But then, all parties bug me a bit, for the same reason the founding fathers desperately feared “factions” … that is, political parties. Factionalism turns government into tribal warfare, with legislation counting as … counting coup.

But no one in the Netherlands is asking how “bugged” I may or may not be.

The outcome of the March 15 elections? Labour lost the most, and the Freedom Party did not do as well as predicted … or feared. Instead of over 20 seats, it won 16, according to Bloomberg (quoting i & o research).

Here’s a not-​so-​odd oddity: I had to wade through quite a few reports on the election before I found any actual numerical results. The papers all seemed too busy gloating that the Freedom Party failed. I guess that counts as enough reporting. For them.

More evidence that we live in a post-​fact society?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Pictured: Ledger drawing of a mounted Cheyenne warrior counting coup with lance on a dismounted Crow warrior, 1880s.

 

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political challengers

Euro Woes

The Dutch have just voted, and Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party took a big hit. The more centrist VVD and Labor parties increased seats, indicating that a solid Dutch majority is resolved to back both “austerity and the recent eurozone bailouts.”

Which, in its own way, is astounding, as another BBC report, on the same day, makes clear. The “fizz seems to have gone right out of the euro project, even here in Maastsricht,” writes Manuela Saragosa for the BBC, quoting one businessman insisting that “We have one Europe with totally different excise duties and taxes in each country. It doesn’t work… First work on harmonizing all that and then create a single currency. They did it the wrong way round.”

A common political problem.

But righting something done wrong is not easy.

Just ask Wilders. He was the one who started this political round, when his party gave a vote of no-​confidence to the government, necessitating a new election. During the campaign, Wilders repeatedly denounced the heavy burden of the EU bailouts on a hypothetical Dutch couple named Henk and Ingrid. The illustration “backfired when a real-​life Henk with a wife called Ingrid attacked and killed an immigrant.”

The Socialist Party also lost seats. Perhaps the party’s leader’s response to the very idea of austerity struck the Dutch as also unworthy: “Over my dead body” to spending cuts is not a very reasonable program for fending off the financial collapse of the Dutch pension and healthcare systems.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.