Our Dutch correspondent H. Numan sends this account of the latest political crisis in the Netherlands:
Both the Dutch secretary and the undersecretary for Justice resigned
The minister of Justice, Ivo Opstelten, and his junior minister Fred Teeven offered their resignation to the king. They were forced to resign due to a political scandal. One of many surrounding this dynamic duo. The straw that broke the camel’s back was a deal that Fred Teeven made with a criminal when he (Teeven) was district attorney. According to Mr. Teeven, he paid 1.5 million guilders to the criminal Cees H. According other sources it was quite a bit more: 4.5 million. Until last week no receipts were found.
However, this week civil servants working for the Justice Department did find those receipts. As the minister fully defended his junior, both lied to parliament in a major way. So the minister had no other option than to offer his resignation. Therefore, his number two had to resign as well. Both are being replaced by the relative nonentity Stef Blok, currently secretary of housing. He’s managing both departments right now.
What exactly happened is not really important to GoV readers, but their resignation certainly is. Because the consequences will be pretty big.
Currently we have a coalition cabinet between the VVD (conservatives) and the PvdA (socialists). That coalition is on its very last legs. It wasn’t a match made in heaven to begin with, but right now both parties are in real trouble. A cabinet of conservatives together with socialists can work, but usually it doesn’t. Though the VVD won the elections, during the first year of the cabinet the PvdA called the tune. That didn’t sit very well with the conservative electorate. The VVD tumbled from 40 seats at the last election to half that number now.
During the second year of the cabinet the tables were reversed. The PvdA was raked by scandals and needed all the support they could get. Which the VVD was kind enough to give. Of course for a political price. That didn’t sit very well with the progressive electorate. The PvdA tumbled from 35 seats at the last election to 9 seats, though both parties are slowly recovering.
Now, next week we have elections. Nothing fancy, the coming elections are about the most boring and utterly insignificant we have. We are to elect new provincial governments. What a provincial government actually does is a bit of a mystery. Because real important decisions are taken by either the national government or the municipalities. Not by the provinces. Most people see this as a kind of ‘inactive position’ for misbehaving politicians, or a kind of training ground for aspiring ones.
But this time it’s very different. The senate is due for elections. Now, electing senators is something so difficult and complicated ordinary citizens are deemed to stupid for it. Only the provincial representatives can do that. Stepped elections, in other words.
Currently the government does have a majority in parliament, but not in the senate. That’s a real handicap, because several pieces of legislation have already been shot down by a not-so-friendly senate. Both the socialists and the conservatives are going to lose those elections in a major way. The question is not whether they are going to lose this election, but by how much. After the election the government will have to deal with a senate that really hostile to it.
As the election will be held on the 18th of March, this sudden resignation is something the conservatives could do very well without. The fact that both are top level conservative politicians, and have been replaced by only one relative nonentity is also significant. It shows the conservatives are either running out of scandal-free top level politicians, or saving them for later.
I think this cabinet is already dead, but doesn’t want to admit it as yet. However, with this resignation and almost certainly a disastrous defeat next week, the cabinet doesn’t have much of a chance to survive until summer. It’s not impossible the cabinet will limp along, hoping for a miracle. But it’s far more likely the opposition will pull the plug and force it to resign.
Now, that’s not good news. Yes, this cabinet is not exactly one the best we had. But it can (and will!) be a lot worse… The Christian party CDA is recovering from their losses in previous elections and D66 is doing pretty well. Both want to cash in on that. Oops, to govern, I mean. Especially the leader of D66, Alexander Pechtold, feels himself absolutely certain to be the next prime minister.
The CDA party is a somewhat center-left party for somewhat religious people. Any religion will do. The Dutch nickname this party often “Christenen Dienen Allah” or “Christians serving Allah”, as they warmly welcome any religion. Especially the religion of peace. The party is as politically correct as can be, and supports the EU up to the hilt. Mr. van Haersma-Buma feels quite certain this country needs more religion and a new prime minister.
D66 is a split off of the conservative VVD. They split in 1966, and were sort of democratic mavericks then. Hence the name. The party doesn’t really have a program of its own. More like ‘what works best in the coming elections is what we stand for.’ Also, this is a bit of an up and down party. One year they’re up and one of the biggest parties, next year they are down and debate if they should close down the party altogether. Right now they are on the up track.
The current issues D66 is fighting for: destroy Wilders and the PVV. That is number one on their agenda. They will always vote opposite of Wilders and the PVV. Next item is to be as politically correct as possible. A subject can be utterly crazy or insane, but if it’s politically correct D66 will support it. Third item is the EU. Some parties like the EU, others dislike it. But D66 is the most pro-EU party in the country. Or the entire EU, for that matter. D66 doesn’t feel they should represent their country. They feel they represent the EU. A the party is very much in love with the religion of peace; it’s often nicked the 66 Dhimmis. Read any ridiculous Dutch court ruling recently? You can be sure the judge or the DA is a card carrying-member of D66. The two kangaroo courts trying to convict Wilders were … yep. All judges were D66 party members.
I didn’t mention the PVV. That’s because most other parties either actively boycott them, or try avoiding dealing with them. The PVV is earmarked to become the winner of the elections, currently they’re polling consistently as the biggest party. Doesn’t matter, because none wants to cooperate with them. Currently all parties are very busy looking the other way when PVV politicians get harassed by left wing radicals. It’s so nice when somebody else is doing your dirty work, isn’t?
Now, add all of the above together. That’s why I’m not too keen on elections. This cabinet is not exactly the best we ever had, but it can be a lot worse. And it’s almost certain it will be.
Articles on the crisis (in Dutch):
Just do an internet search on “Ivo Opstelten” and/or “Fred Teeven”, and you’ll find
plenty more.
I had this Dutch coworker once who was going on about how the U.S. 2nd amendment was dumb and civilians shouldn’t have guns, etc. So I asked him what he would do if the Netherlands got invaded, to which he replied “I’d just surrender.”
I suspect that this is the attitude of almost everyone toward pretty much everything in the Netherlands. Being a small place with this kind of attitude, it’s pretty much expected that they’d just want to hand over all political power to something like the EU who can worry about all the real world problems and responsibilities for them. While not everyone will be like this, I’m just betting that it’s around 90% of the population that has no interest in anything like Dutch sovereignty or self determination.
Correct Nimrod. The Dutch will tell you they are sooo intelligent, open and courageous. Guns? We got the police to “protect”us. Government will take care of our “safety”. We dont need any 2nd amendment. Your former co-worker is a disgrace for the people of the Netherlands.
The reality for the Netherlands is: Most Dutchmen are stupid, ignorant and cowards. All that matters to them is: can we make a profit…? I despise most of my fellow citizens. They will deal with the devil and sell their mothers for a buck. The phrase: i rather be poor and free than rich and enslaved! means nothing to them..
It took the Nazi’s 5 days to conquer the Netherlands ( compare that to the German performance at Arnhem Market Garden).
We had 144.000 jews in may 1940. Only 30.000 survived. Compare that to a country like France and Belgium.. “Only” 40% of their Jewish population were killed. That’s how tolerant, bright and courageous my fellow countrymen are.
The Netherlands is infested with cultural marxists, just like your former co-worker is..
The other funny thing was that he said something to me like the US is making the same mistakes that the Netherlands made in the past but the Dutch had learned from them now, suggesting they are somehow more mature.
I had no idea what the hell he was talking about and didn’t ask him to explain, but it sounded like something someone would say if they’d been taught some sort of revisionist history intended to support Marxist policies. (Revising history is after all an explicitly stated Marxist goal.)
Full of himself and the “superior” Dutch way of taking care of affairs. Sounds like a true Dutch deep “thinker” this country is filled with.
‘We had 144.000 jews in may 1940. Only 30.000 survived. Compare that to a country like France and Belgium.. “Only” 40% of their Jewish population were killed. That’s how tolerant, bright and courageous my fellow countrymen are.’
My tolerant, liberal Dutch friends will not even watch Verhoeven’s best film “Black Book”. They already know they despise it. My friends prefer to keep alive the fantasy that their countrymen were blameless during WW2. They can’t grasp why gays and jews support people like Le Pen and Wilders.
Dog behavior! Turning their heads away from inconvenient truths.. You have nice friends!
It’s about time these myths about Dutch people being so “tolerant and liberal”are exposed and know in the rest of the world.
For the close observers. Try to look at a bunch of Dutch people entering an airplane in any American airport. They just don’t get it! Group 1 goes in first etc..They all run to the boarding area. That should tell you one thing. These Dutch people are either stupid or they all are anti-social. Or both.
Interesting that you mention the film “Black Book”: a superb exploration of the fluid, ambiguous and often sinister roles played by Dutch individuals during the German occupation which was based around the real life experiences of one Dutch Jewish woman.
The character of Ronnie – the simple, opportunistic, good-time girl with a core of human decency – is a gem. The treacherous greedy doctor Resistance member Akkermans is her antithesis. One wonders
how many Dutch people were something like Ronnie and like Akkermans? And got away with it.
In the early 80’s I dated a half-Dutch, half German woman. Her German father encountered a great deal of hostility in Australia; her Dutch mother none. The paradox was that the maternal grandfather was a member the Dutch Nazi Party and both Dutch uncles had volunteered for the Waffen SS. On her paternal side, the family was persecuted for its anti-Nazi positions, with the grandfather being incarcerated in a concentration camp for over a decade.
Don’t forget that the socialist crap get’s spoon fed from the day you go to school there. I was lucky to have escaped from it.
“All judges were D66 party members.”
This is legal?!
Seems like it shouldn’t be, but honestly I believe the main problem in Europe is the use of Civil Law systems as opposed to Common Law systems. See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_(legal_system)
The core issue is this:
“Unlike common law systems, civil law jurisdictions deal with case law apart from any precedence value. Civil law courts generally decide cases using codal provisions on a case-by-case basis, without reference to other (or even superior) judicial decisions.[10]”
This means that judges can more easily made totally arbitrary decisions based on [bovine ordure] political beliefs they have. So party affiliation becomes much more important than it would be under a common law system.
This problem has no doubt been recognized in countries that use civil law systems, and various ad hoc measures have no doubt been legislated to try to compensate for this, but like most such things I have a hard time believing in their effectiveness.
If you compare the map of legal systems in the above link with the corruption index map here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index you will see some correlation.
Whenever cable news in the US (fox or CNN for example) reports on a court case in some place like Italy, and they’re trying to explain it, they always say something like “their legal system is different there”. The whole time I’m thinking “no, their legal system is just screwed up.”
1) The Dutch seem to have the sort of congressional system the US originally, i.e. the Senate elected by the states, roughly speaking.
2) What would happen if the PVV wins a plurality, or better still, a majority?
1) No. We cant vote for this senate. We can vote for the delegates that run the district. These delegates vote- in secret- for their candidate that will enter the Senate of the Netherland. No direct say from any voter in the election of next Wednesday.
2)The PVV could block all new laws in the Senate with a majority. They wont be allowed to alter any laws. All they could say is: no… Halting the whole law making process.
A big- but not a majority- PVV faction can be tough for the ruling VVD-PVDA government.