CharlesVermeulen.com - Weblog Charles Vermeulen

The Loyalty of Rita Verdonk · 28 November 2006, 21:20 CET by Charles Vermeulen

Today, on a press conference set up by herself, Dutch Minister for Integration and Immigration Rita Verdonk stated that she will remain loyal to the parliamentary party and to her boss, current leader of the VVD Mark Rutte. But because she attracted more voters than the number one of the list of candidates during the General Election – ‘a unique situation’, she stressed – she deemed it necessary that the party contemplates on the new situation. Therefore she told the party’s leadership that it should set up a committee which should research what this situation implicates.

dutch general election, mark rutte, netherlands, rita verdonk, rutte, verdonk, vvd

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Dutch General Election - Aftermath · 27 November 2006, 20:20 CET by Charles Vermeulen

Today the final election-results were declared by the Electoral Council (Kiesraad) and it had a remarkable result in store as far as the center-right party VVD of Mark Rutte is concerned. After former political leader of the VVD Jozias van Aartsen resigned Rutte had to compete with hard-line Minister for Integration and Immigration Rita Verdonk for the party’s leadership. Rutte was elected by 51.5% of the VVD members and could count on the support of the VVD leadership. The Dutch voters decided otherwise. During the General Election, which were held last Wednessday and during which the VVD lost 6 seats in the Dutch Lower House, 553,200 of them voted on Rutte and 620,555 on Verdonk. According to Dutch public television news show NOS Journaal it was the first time in the history of the Dutch parliament that the number two of a party beat the leader. Maybe even more remarkable: Verdonk apparently didn’t feel uncomfortable about it. On the contrary, she was ‘proud’ of it and clearly in ecstasies because of it as she cried out: ’(...) 60,000 Voters, this is truly unbelievable!’ So much for decency and loyalty within the VVD. The question is now: will she actually attempt to topple Rutte and force her party to embark on a less moderate, right-wing course? The party’s prodigal son, PVV leader Geert Wilders, is probably closely following current events.

dutch general election, mark rutte, netherlands, rita verdonk, rutte, verdonk, vvd

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Why Balkenende Presented RTL Boulevard · 25 November 2006, 14:17 CET by Charles Vermeulen

As Dutch Prime Minister and leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) Jan-Peter Balkenende presented RTL Boulevard, a daily television show dedicated to fashion and gossip about celebrities, just a week before the Dutch General Election of last Wednessday of course he expected to win votes. But what was the plan behind this move? In today’s edition of daily NRC Handelsblad (page 37) Martijn Lampert of Bureau Motivaction, a Dutch research bureau, says that Motivaction had advised the Prime Minister to present to show and explains this advise as follows. Motivaction thought it wise for the CDA to aim this time at the voters who don’t belong to the CDA’s traditional rank and file, which is ‘ideologically strongly colored’ and very ‘sensible of authority’, but at modern, middle-class voters. The latter not being ‘ideologically-minded’, but rather dedicated to their jobs and families, ‘culturally conservative’ and ‘sometimes somewhat frightened of the outside world’. People ‘who are looking for security’ and ‘susceptible of hypes’. These are the people who happen to be the audience of RTL Boulevard. Besides being co-host of the show Balkenende also got the chance to determine the topics of the show. Mindful of the CDA’s new target group the CDA and Motivaction selected tangible topics because of the relative unfamiliarity with ideologies of the target group. Therefore the show was about subjects as ‘decency’, ‘being proud of the Netherlands’, ‘less sex and violence on TV’ and Balkenende’s love of fast cars.

balkenende, cda, dutch general election, jan-peter balkenende, motivaction, netherlands, rtl boulevard

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Dutch General Election - The Immigrant Electorate · 24 November 2006, 11:34 CET by Charles Vermeulen

According to research bureau Foquz Etnomarketing most members of the big ethnic minorities in the Netherlands voted on one of the left wing parties last Wednessday. Of the Moroccans even more 90%. Two-third of them voted on the PvdA, as did almost half of the Surinam voters and more than one-third of the Turkish voters. Remarkably, 12.3% Of the Turkish votes went to the center-left / liberal Democrats 66 (‘Democraten 66’, ‘D66’ in short) of Alexander Pechtold. On its website public television news show NOS Journaal suggests that the explanation for the popularity of the D66 among Turkish voters is the PvdA’s decision to remove Erdinç Saçan of the candidate list, because of his refusal to fully acknowledge the Armenian genocide, bred bad blood among the Turkish electorate. However, Foquz also states that the PvdA remains very popular among Turks as 35,8% of them voted on the Dutch Labour Party.

armenian genocide, d66, democrats 66, dutch general election, erdinç saçan, netherlands, pvda

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SP Frontman: 'Mao Zedong Mass Murderer' · 24 November 2006, 08:42 CET by Charles Vermeulen

As Jan Marijnissen, frontman of the Socialist Party (SP) and winner of the Dutch General Election 2006, is confronted with the Maoist past of his party in Dutch late night show Pauw en Witteman last night, he unmistakenly distances himself and his party from this past, publicly rebuking a SP blogger who put a Mao affiche on the weblog of the youthwing of the SP (‘Rood’) and new SP Member of Parliament Renske Leijten, who played down the meaning of the mao affiche during the show. According to Marijnissen the SP shouln’t associate with Mao, for the Great Helmsman ‘is known as a mass murderer’.

dutch general election, jan marijnissen, maoism, mao zedong, marijnissen, renske leijten, sp

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Dutch General Election, 2006 - Some Facts · 23 November 2006, 20:18 CET by Charles Vermeulen

The left – Although the main left party of the Netherlands, the PvdA of Wouter Bos loses 10 Lower House seats, all left parties together (PvdA, Socialist Party, GreenLeft) win 6 seats. (The Lower House comprises altogether 150 seats in the Netherlands.) 24% Of the voters of the Socialist Party, once founded in October 1971 as a Maoist party, voted on the center-left PvdA during the elections of 2002. 31% of its voters didn’t vote at all in 2002.

Populist / Anti-immigrant right – The main scions on the Pim Fortuyn tree, Marco Pastors’s EénNL 1, successor of the Pim Fortuyn’s LPF List Five Fortuyn (Lijst Vijf Fortuyn) and Hilbrand Nawijn’s Party for the Netherlands (Partij voor Nederland) get no seat at all. Geert Wilders’s anti-immigrant Party for Freedom (Partij van de Vrijheid) gets nine seats, but isn’t a scion of the Pim Fortuyn tree although 24% of his voters voted on the LPF in 2002. 43% Of Wilders’s voters didn’t vote at all during the elections of 2002.

Rotterdam – In port city Rotterdam, which happens to be the home base of this blogger, the PvdA remains more than twice as big as the CDA of Jan Peter Balkenende (29.2% of the city’s votes against 14.4%). EénNL of Marco Pastors, once protégé of Pim Fortuyn and like Fortuyn based in Rotterdam too, got only 3.2% of the votes.

dutch general election, fortuyn, geert wilders, hilbrand nawijn, marco pastors, netherlands, pim fortuyn, pvda, rotterdam, sp, wilders

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Dutch General Election - Anti-Islam Party 9 Seats · 22 November 2006, 23:22 CET by Charles Vermeulen

83.1% Of the votes is counted and the election-results are assuming a definitive shape. Balkenende’s CDA gets 41 seats (loses 3), the social democrats of the PvdA lose 9 seats and ends up with 9 seats. Current partner of the CDA in Balkenende’s government VVD of Mark Rutte loses 6 seats. Big winners are likely Jan Marijnissen’s SP (Socialist Party) (wins 16 seats, gets 25 seats) and Geert Wilders’s PvdV (Party for Freedom) (1 seat now, wins 8). Especially the success of the latter is remarkable, because public opinion poll’s didn’t predict it. It shows that anti-immigrant sentiment, especially anti-muslim sentiment, is still alive in the Netherlands.

balkenende, cda, dutch general election, geert wilders, jan marijnissen, mark rutte, netherlands, pvda, rutte, sp, vvd, wilders

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Dutch General Election - CDA Likely the Biggest · 22 November 2006, 21:06 CET by Charles Vermeulen

All polling-stations in the Netherlands just closed and public broadcaster NOS and ANP, leading news agency of the Netherlands, presents a prognosis of the results of the Dutch General Election, 2006: CDA 43 (of 150) seats, PvdA seats 35, SP 24, VVD 21, GroenLinks 8, D66 2, Christen Unie 5, SGP 2, Geert Wilders’s Partij voor de Vrijheid 6, Marco Pastors’s EénNL 1 and the Partij voor de Dieren 3.

Update – According to the above mentioned prognosis Jan Peter Balkenende’s Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) will lose one seat and as result the party likely remains the biggest party in the Dutch Lower House (Tweede Kamer). The PvdA, the social democrats of Wouter Bos, will lose 7 seats, probably most of them to the SP, the Socialist Party of Jan Marijnissen, the big winner of this election. The SP wins no fewer than 15 seats. Also Geert Wilders’s right-wing Party for Freedom (PvdV, ‘Partij van de Vrijheid’) seems to be a relatively big winner. Wilders will be joined by five new political associates in the Dutch Lower House. The latter showing that anti-immigrant sentiment, though relatively modest, is still alive. Also former Pim Fortuyn’s protégé Marco Pastors and his EénNL will enter the Dutch Lower House, be it alone. On the other hand, the List Five Fortuyn (Lijst Vijf Fortuyn), successor of the Pim Fortuyn’s LPF and big winner of the General Elections of 2002, seems to be wiped out completely (zero seats). Dutch animals seem to get their own representatives in Dutch parliament, as the Party for Animals (Partij voor de Dieren) probably wins three seats out of nothing.

Dutch General Election, CDA, PvdA, Geert Wilders, SP, Pim Fortuyn

cda, dutch general election, fortuyn, geert wilders, jan marijnissen, netherlands, pim fortuyn, pvda, sp, wilders

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