Dutch election 2017

[Norton]

Dutch voters are casting their ballots today in an election that has been billed as a barometer of populism in Europe. DW will keep you informed of events as they happen throughout the day.

Welcome to our rolling coverage of the Dutch election, with the latest news, views and reactions to the divisive race.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte's center-right VVD party is attempting to fend off populist leader Geert Wilders in parliamentary elections that have garnered international attention.

In a diplomatic spat Turkey has accused Netherlands of Nazi practices and of being responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, reportedly playing into the popularity of VVD.

Six main parties are predicted to enter parliament: the ruling VVD, Wilder's Party for Freedom, the centrist D66, Green-Left, the Socialist Party and the social democrat Labor Party (PvdA).

Rutte says the elections can send a message to the world. "We have the upcoming French and German elections. And this is a chance for a big democracy like the Netherlands to make a point - to stop this toppling over of the domino stones of the wrong sort of populism,"

More.

+++ Dutch election - live updates +++ | News | DW.COM | 15.03.2017

[Norton]

Rutte says the elections can send a message to the world. "We have the upcoming French and German elections. And this is a chance for a big democracy like the Netherlands to make a point - to stop this toppling over of the domino stones of the wrong sort of populism,"

A point. One way or the other.

[Pragmatic]

Geert Wilders

He gets my vote. Well he would if I was Dutch.

[wasabi]

Well if the BBC is still to be believed they are reporting that he ^ cannot win because of the Turkish fiasco. Now the BBC have very recently got it wrong in the Brexit and U.S. elections, let's see if they are right this time.

[Troy]

^ No-one can really win outright in Holland. Nobody expects any of the other parties to create a coalition with Mr Evil...

The wrong type of populism sums it up quite nicely....

[buriramboy]

^ No-one can really win outright in Holland. Nobody expects any of the other parties to create a coalition with Mr Evil...

The wrong type of populism sums it up quite nicely....

Anything apart from left wing nutjob politically correct socialism is the wrong type of populism these days. Wilders won't form a government in Holland, Le Pen won't become president of France (not this time anyway) but the results will still show that a decent % of both populations of founding members of the clusterfuk want out of it.

[Troy]

^ I don't think the Treaty of Accession had anything to do with, nutjob politically correct socialism, as you wish to call it and more to do with the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the desire to bring Eastern Europe into the fold of democracy.

The idea was good and has stopped all sorts of possible nasty scenarios from happening. It's just a pity that too many have forgotten the purpose and the cost to ensure stability.

I guess there are a lot of selfish people that don't consider others and don't consider how the stability has been achieved.

[buriramboy]

The original purpose was a common market which we had a referendum on and joined some 40+ years ago and if they would have left it at that there would be no issue. We were never asked to join a political and monetary union thus having laws imposed on us against our national interest. I'm all for the original idea of the ECC but not what it has morphed into as in the present day EU. Even the fukwits in Brussels are now discussing going back to just a common market, it's taken the UK to leave to start making the fukwits see sense before the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. Even the Germans won't put up with the status quo much longer and the anti EU party there forget it's name will make big gains later this year.

[reddog]

Watching the French news today and it showed the fearless leader of the Turks,Erdogin
mouthing off in a speech saying the Dutch have nothing to offer the modern world.
That nut job is is running true to form and i think him saying that would of swayed
more Dutch voters to vote for Geert Wilders.

[Norton]

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte's party has won the most seats in parliamentary elections, exit polls say.
His centre-right VVD Party won 31 out of 150 seats, polls suggest.
His party came far ahead of the next three parties, including Geert Wilders' anti-immigration Freedom Party (PVV), the Christian Democrats and the D66 Party, which each got 19 seats.
Mr Wilders' party had been leading in opinion polls but support for the party appeared to slip in recent days.
Voter participation in the general election was high - with an estimated turnout of at least 81%.

Dutch election: PM Rutte sees off anti-EU Wilders challenge - BBC News

[cyrille]

So, a great result for the pro-European leftwing ecologists of 'GreenLeft', then.

[Dragonfly]

His centre-right VVD Party won 31 out of 150 seats, polls suggest.

not really a majority, he is a bit fucked there

[buriramboy]

No one gets a majority in Holland as its a pr voting system, just watching the news looking like Fillon is a bit fucked now and I thought he was a certainty for next president of France, looks like going to be between the lovely Le Pen and Macron in the run off.

[Norton]

Little to Celebrate in the Dutch Elections

It says something about the state of European politics that the Dutch election results are widely seen as cause for celebration. Geert Wilders -- a far-right populist who makes Donald Trump look like a cautious centrist -- did worse than expected. But he was by no means crushed, and the anger Wilders and his ilk are channeling is still there.

In due course Prime Minister Mark Rutte will be able to form a new coalition government. (These things take time in the Netherlands.) But his center-right party has lost seats and had to tack to the populist right to avoid a worse result. "Crushed" is the only word for what happened to Rutte's Labor coalition partner: It will have nine seats in the new 150-member parliament, down from 38. Wilders's PVV party increased its tally of seats from 15 to 20.

In a splintered parliamentary system with many small parties, it won't be hard to exclude the PVV from the new coalition government -- but this was no shattering defeat for the far-right.

And consider what it took to contain the threat. Rutte had to toughen his language (if not his policy) on immigration -- "behave normally or leave," he told migrants in a letter published in January in Dutch newspapers. Rutte's standing up to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan late in the campaign probably also helped his cause.

More encouraging is that the Netherlands, unlike the U.K., shows little interest in quitting the European Union. On the whole, strongly pro-EU parties did well in the election (often at Labor's expense), and Wilders's fervid opposition to the EU may actually have held him back. There's plenty of euroskepticism in the Netherlands, but it's mostly loyal dissent: The Dutch are in no hurry to follow the U.K. out.

Immigration remains the most troublesome issue. The Netherlands used to stand as a model for multiculturalism, but no longer. Like many other EU countries, the Netherlands has failed to assimilate its immigrants.

It can be argued that this is partly by design -- it's what multiculturalism means. If the sentiments driving far-right populism are to be defeated, however, assimilation will have to take precedence. Education, language training and housing policy must be recruited to the cause. Making it easier for migrants to find work -- the Dutch record on this is especially poor -- is crucial.

It's encouraging that Wilders didn't do better. But he and his allies aren't going away.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/artic...utch-elections

[Norton]

In a splintered parliamentary system with many small parties, it won't be hard to exclude the PVV from the new coalition government

I think will be very hard. Appears a coalition will have to envolve 6 parties. Not an easy task to perform.

[Warwick]

Like many other EU countries, the Netherlands has failed to assimilate its immigrants.

To be more accurate Netherlands immigrants, like those in many other countries both EU and non-EU, have not assimilated and have little interest in doing so.

Rutte can strut about and claim he has defeated the wrong sort of populism, but he would probably have done worse if Erdogan had not thrown him a lifebelt. Losing seats for your own party and that of one of your main coalition partners while Wilders increased his does not like much of a crushing victory to me.

[Dragonfly]

just watching the news looking like Fillon is a bit fucked now and I thought he was a certainty for next president of France

Fillon never had a chance, his policies were too drastic and not doable here, he was already losing ground on that alone before the whole fucking mess. Now it's an impossible task for him. He was Putin man btw, probably the CIA dossier on him, as the whole thing was cleverly managed when it was leaked to the press

looks like going to be between the lovely Le Pen and Macron in the run off.

indeed, but we never know. Could be a close call as Fillon fans are going to vote en masse for LePen as a revenge vote.