The Dutch Elections

A week from today The Netherlands goes to the polls for a general election, and the big question is how well Geert Wilders and the PVV will do. Our Dutch correspondent H. Numan sends this handy roundup of election-related information to help non-Dutch readers get a handle on the situation.

The Dutch elections

By H. Numan

On the 15th of March the Dutch will vote. The national elections are very much in the international news. The big questions are: will the PVV win? What will happen if they do?

Journalists from all over the world flock to The Netherlands to interview Wilders and to report about the elections in a couple of days. The Dutch media are blasting at Wilders with both barrels. Not only the media do what they can to avert the inevitable. So do the polls.

Let’s start here: How do you poll?, Theoretically you want to ask non-biased questions of as many people as possible all over the country, from all age and income groups. Suppose you hold a poll in a small poor rural village in Alabama: you’d get a very different outcome compared to polling the same number of people in a yuppie area of New York or Los Angeles.

The biggest problem with public opinion polls is transparency. You can read the result, but not how they got them. Especially regular political polls are, in my opinion, extremely unreliable. It’s way too easy to rig the results as desired.

If you look at the Dutch opinion pollers, I regret to say you can only find similar ilk in North Korea. The public of course changes its mind. Nothing is written in stone. But most people change their opinions for sound reasons. Not because it’s raining, or Wilders wears the wrong color of necktie. Now that we’re getting very close to the elections, the polls are pure propaganda. The PVV has led in the polls for well over a year with a very wide margin. They consistently polled +30 seats for more than a year. They peaked at 36 seats. Now, all of a sudden, some pollers dare to rig their results as low as 24 seats. In a matter of mere weeks.


Dutch poll, January 10 2016

That’s a drop of 12 seats. The PVV dropped more than a third in popularity. Why? Such a massive change in public opinion must have a reason. The only reason I can see is ‘we polling companies don’t want the PVV to win’. No other reason. For the past six months Wilders and his party behaved in an exemplary fashion. No ‘less, less, less!’ remarks. The PVV campaign is very well-received. Most people actually liked that short A4-sized program. Contrast this to the +350 page thick D66 program. Hardly a soul has read it. Just about everyone read what the PVV wants to do. Most people I know like it. It’s short; they don’t promise the moon on a golden platter. It’s well-calculated. And it can be done easily. There is no reason at all for the PVV to suddenly drop more than a third. None whatsoever.

On the other side, in all other political parties, there are lots of reasons to loose popularity. Instead they go up. The VVD (conservative) party, for example, blundered not once, but for more than a year. Consistently. The party leader and current premier, Mr. Rutte, broke not one but ALL of his campaign promises. Twice: in two elections he broke each and every campaign promise. Not only that, he sidelined the referendum about the Ukraine. No, he didn’t annul it. He could have done that, and it would have been perfectly legal and probably understood. He simply sidelined it with a meaningless addendum. That doesn’t sit well with lots of people. Next, he lost two justice ministers and his cabinet is racked by more scandals than Lindsey Lohan and Madonna put together. I cannot imagine that a party like that would go up in the polls. But they do.

The VVD governs in a coalition with the PvdA (labor). Labor is a lost cause. No poller dares to massage the polls in their favor. Too obvious. This coalition is a pact with the devil. From both points of view. Lots of conservative voters voted last time ‘strategically’ on the VVD to keep Wilders and the PvdA out. Same on the other side, to keep Wilders and the VVD out. The PvdA is going to pay the price for it. They currently poll around 10 seats. Only Lodewijk Asscher firmly believes he’ll win. Nobody else does. Not even his own party. The best they can hope for is to lose less than expected and call that a victory.

The CDA (Christian Democrats) do fairly well in the polls, but there are many reasons for that. First of all, the CDA has been in the opposition for eight years. Most people forgot the blundering Balkenende cabinets. His cabinets were often nicknamed Balkan Bende. A pun on his name. In Dutch, ‘bende’ can mean criminal gang of the Balkans or a big Balkan mess. He’s lecturing somewhere and people have forgotten he’s even alive. His successor Sybrand van Haersma Buma (old Frisian patrician family) has no real program to speak of, apart from ‘let’s be all nice and behave sociably’. But he is better than nothing, and the pollers must give seats from Wilders to someone, after all. The CDA controlled Dutch politics for a century. Now they are relegated to second string. They only do well because they are needed to keep Wilders out.

D66 has its share of scandals, but they are in the opposition and are firmly against Wilders. Otherwise they’d be as dead as the dodo. Mr. Alexander Pechtold has more skeletons in his cupboard than a graveyard. Nasty character. But he fights Wilders, so anything goes. One recent scandal that never forced him to retire: Wassila Hachchi.

Ms. Wassila was his mistress. He paid for her services with a seat in parliament. The relationship soured, and all of a sudden Ms Wassila resigned her seat in parliament. She collected her parliamentarian pension, and flew to America to hand out flyers for Mrs. Clinton. That made her the best-paid flyer-handler in world history. She racks in € 7500 monthly, for the coming four years. D66 was able to keep that one out of the news, mostly. Another item on their agenda is legal euthanasia for anyone over 75 years of age who wants it, and even more: for anyone who wants it. D66 is the party that wants to cut back old age pensions the most. Many people do not think it’s a coincidence they like euthanasia. The dead cannot collect pensions, can they?

Last on my list of second-string candidates is the leader of the communist party. Nowadays called Green-Left. His name is JFK: Jesse Feras Klaver. Or, as he prefers it: Jesse ‘Obama’ Klaver. He is the lookalike — no coincidence — of Justin Trudeau. He is of mixed Dutch (mother) and Moroccan (father) origin. Therefore his name is not correct. His name must be, by Moroccan law, Yasser Feras. Morocco has a list of 75 legal first names. Other first names, such as Jesse, are not acceptable. Therefore, his real name is Yasser Feras, with the Klaver part added later on. But Jesse Klaver sounds a lot better, and he is the wonder-boy of the extreme left. Until he gained too much in the polls. Newspapers found out he rigged his curriculum, copied his speeches from others and imitates Trudeau meticulously. He failed several times miserably in debates. In short, he got too big for his breeches was and cut down to size.

D66 is doing fairly well, but like Buma and Feras, Pechtold is second-string. The real fight is between Wilders and Rutte. Wilders has the support of the people, Rutte of the elite. The fight is dirty. Very dirty. Like in America, we enjoy public entertainment such as debates between candidates. One channel wanted to broadcast a debate between the four leading candidates. Days before the debate they suddenly invited a fifth party, GL’s Yasser Feras. Wilders immediately refused to debate. The agreement was with four parties, not with five. Rutte did the same; they agreed on that beforehand. Rutte’s refusal was okay. Wilders was a ‘coward’.

Wilders refused another debate. The day before, that station presented a lengthy interview with Paul Wilders, his (evil) older brother. Paul doesn’t like Geert at all. Wherever he can, he’ll say that. So that station of course offered him ample time to speak his mind. The problem is that Geert Wilders didn’t play along. The idea was to grill him over what his brother said during the debate. Didn’t happen, as Wilders was rightfully furious. Paul Wilders is retired; never went into politics. His opinion about his brother is as relevant as Fred Jr. Trump’s political views are. Not at all.

Of course Wilders is slandered widely for refusing to debate. He’s a coward, cannot debate, afraid to lose. A real dictator. That sort of thing. He’s also slandered for refusing to talk to the Dutch media. He prefers to speak to foreign media, which is much easier. Not so, said Mr. Wilders to a Dutch journalist. English-speaking media especially ask difficult questions. But they don’t try to let him walk into a trap. Wilders does speak to Dutch media, and a lot. Only not to his media enemies. And he is brave enough to say straight to their faces why he won’t come. He doesn’t hide behind feeble excuses. Oh no!

That’s doesn’t sit very well, as the media consider themselves to be the fourth power in the trias politica. He’s supposed to need them. Without his support he shouldn’t be able to win the elections. Like in America, them grapes sure are sour to swallow!

I’m pretty confident Wilders will win the election by a landslide. What really worries me is electoral fraud and the cordon sanitaire. The political rulers have made it abundantly clear they do not want or tolerate Wilders. Murdering him, like his predecessor Pim Fortuyn, is not possible. Too bleeding obvious. Voting abroad is possible, I have already done that. Interest is much larger than usual, and our hard-working civil servants cannot handle it. A coincidence? Normally they expect 45,000 voters abroad; this election +70,000 voters have registered. Many of them haven’t received their ballot. Mine was just in time, but barely. About 50,000 people can’t vote. That’s one possible seat in parliament fewer for the PVV. Not all those votes would go to the PVV, but better safe than sorry.

It’s too easy to invalidate a ballot. Color another box red, doodle a line on it. It’s no longer valid. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if after this election a lot of ballot forms will be found invalid. Not too many, of course. Just enough to keep Wilders out of office. As happened twice in Austria. I’m pretty sure that will happen, because if Wilders wins more than 40 seats, it will be almost impossible to form a coalition without him.

An option suggested is a coalition between VVD-CDA-D66-GL. The conservatives ruling together with the communists? That would mean the end of both parties. But the end justifies the means. Our political rulers have said Wilders Delenda Est, so anything goes.

It’ll be an interesting election, I’ll grant you that.

— H. Numan

17 thoughts on “The Dutch Elections

  1. It will be even funnier if the Dutch elites believe their own steer manure and Mr Wilders wins in a landslide!

    Polls can be manipulated, but reality is much harder to fake.

  2. yes, so beware the Ides of March, and have PVV monitors at every polling station.

  3. Six months ago I would’ve found it hard to imagine DJT, Le Pen and Wilders in office. Of course, after decades of political malfeasance across the west – a return to normalcy had to have occurred. I just didn’t expect the slots to throw up three 7’s.

    • They haven’t–yet. Let’s not count our chickens before they’re hatched.
      It’s one down–two to go, and Wilders and Le Pen are fighting some really nasty characters, in a system which would have seen the Clinton woman win.

    • I wouldn’t count on it.

      Geert Wilders painted himself into a “damned if I do, damned if I don’t” corner. The man is being systematicaly demonized and vilefied (not to mention despised by so many, so intensely) that it no matter what he does, he will be attacked for it. Keep in mind that inWestern Europe, politically correct viewpoints are the only acceptable norm. (tax payer funded) television and “quality” newspapers are controlled by the left, bringing only one-sided, biased news, There are no real alternatives. Something like Fox News doesn’t exist here, while websites like Breitbart (and the one you are reading right now) are considered “neo nazi” sites, that “spew divisive, racist filth” so any viewpoints expressed therein, no matter how valid, can and will be dismissed beforehand.

      European MSM does not only promote a multi cultural, pro islam, pro-EU agenda, it also teaches it’s audience by example to vehemently attack any opinions that deviate from that politically correct, socially acceptable norm, and urges the general public to “be alert” with incessant, constant “warnings” against “rising racism” and “xenophobia, fascism and islamophobia” (which more often than not is only imaginary).

      The most influentual and popular talkshows in the country have asked candidates of all main parties including Wilders to appear on air for an indepth interview and do their little promotional babble.
      In case of Wilders, it is of course different. Realizing these tv shows are basically people’s courts and orchestrated with one sole, specific purpose, namely “the roast of Geert Wilders” in public before a more or less hostile live audience, Mr. Wilders respectfully declined all of these invitations.

      I can see why, but it did provide his political opponents with infinitely more ammo : “Wilders is a coward !” “Wilders declines to debate, this proves he has no points !”, “Wilders is a racist loudmouth, who has no solutions !” “Wilders is a dictator !” and so on.

      Either way, all parties seem to agree on one thing : preventing Wilders from forming a new government is paramount priority, and in order to achieve this common goal, they are prepared and willing to set aside all differences they may have and do whatever it takes.

      Furthermore, I would like to clarify that the phrase “in office” is a bit misleading. Being “in office” does not really carry the same weight or significance in Europe as it does in the US. A Dutch prime minister is more like a spokesperson or intermediate. He doesn’t call the shots, sign bills, or rule, much less rule by decree. A PM’s powers are nowhere near the powers of a US president.

      Even in the unlikely event that Wilders should become PM, any laws he and his coalition may conjure up will be annuled and frustrated by the Senate, which is still dominated by the establishment and in particular the left..

      But one thing is for sure : Next week’s general elections will be interesting, They may shake up not only the Dutch political landscape, but also be a shot in the arm for the “populist”, Euroskeptic movement on a larger scale.

  4. It happened here in Blighty during the run up to the EU vote. The polls kept telling us Brexiters, we were in the minority. I supposed they underestimated our integrity and dedication. We just went ahead and voted “out” anyway. When speaking to friends acquaintences etc. ante-vote, I noticed that their voting intentions did not mirror what the polls were telling us. I sincerely hope the same, silly tactics are being employed in Holland, and that the Dutch vote for their future as a Dutch nation.

  5. I haven’t really found it easy to locate any unbiased articles on this election in English, so thankfully we have the GOV to help. There is one well known site in English but the moment immigration is mentioned in a negative light, there is a barrage of responses accusing posters of being racist. I am just appalled that despite the blatant evidence of what is happening in their Country, one cannot speak out truthfully without the fear of being stigmatized as a racist. That aside, this election will be one of the most important for the Netherlands in decades, and should Wilders not win, the Netherlands will be yet another European Country that will head on a rapid downward spiral into the abyss.

  6. I don´t agree, because PVV has historically always got less votes in the actual election than during the polls.

  7. I was told by someone in the US Army who was deployed at the time of the US election that absentee ballots did not arrive in time to be cast, and it was no secret that most military favored Mr. Trump.

    • The U.S. media (MSM) was in the tank for Clinton/Kaine with Bill Clinton being pushed for “First Laddie in Charge of Interns”. The MSM tried to besmirch Trump’s “morals”. Ha! Never a mention of Bill’s lies & denials during the intern scandal back in his day. Heck! IF not for the blue dress with his […] all over it; he’d STILL be denying it to this day. (Lewinsky had better thank Linda Tripp for adivising her to keep the dress; it not for that, she might be sleeping with the fishes today! I have always suspected that Bill Clinton was blackmailed by foreign powers before he was finally forced to admit his lechery. It’s odd that so many foreign “visitors” were suddenly “touring” our nuclear facilities before he was outed.

      We dodged a bullet this time, and I’m thankful there were many like us who were ready to walk barefoot over rough gravel to get to the polls and vote against Harridan Hillary Clinton & First Laddie Wannabe Bill Clinton. – Obama bragged that he had a phone and a pen. Trump also has several phones and pens. M.A.G.A., Mr. President!

      We’re uniting to send him lots of supportive postcards on March 16, 2017 in answer to the [Soros] organized “protests”. If the protesters want Sharia law, let them go where it is at!

      • “We dodged a bullet this time, and I’m thankful there were many like us who were ready to walk barefoot over rough gravel to get to the polls and vote against Harridan Hillary Clinton & First Laddie Wannabe Bill Clinton.”

        I’m going to give you an unsubstantiated opinion.

        I think it was intended that Jeb Bush win the election. Hillary was a little red meat thrown to the extreme left constituency of the Democratic party to keep them interested. But both Bush and Hillary had the same direction with respect to the shadow government’s policies: more foreign intervention, more immigration, more bureaucracy, more international commissions with legal coercive powers, and more international banking collaboration.

        Hillary was glaringly incompetent, but even if she won, she would pose no threat to the shadow government. I expect the campaign would have been the most expensive ever, but purely as a distraction to cover up the basic similarity between candidates.

        It’s true that Trump is literally a second chance for the entire civilization of the West. It’s still a close call, but Hillary or Bush would equally have been the death-knell.

  8. A fairly on target assessment of the current political landscape in the Netherlands.

    However, strangely absent in the overall summary are PvdA breakaways Kuzu and Ozturk. These two gentlemen, who as their names indicate are of Turkish heritage split off from PvdA to start their own party, called DENK, which may be some acronym of sorts, but means “think!” in Dutch language. DENK mixes an undeniable islamist agenda with extreme left “everyone is racist except for us” kind of dogmatic mindset.

    With an estimated 6 % of the Dutch population being islamic these days, which probably includes a good number or disgruntled muslims, DENK did not only find a niche, they also found the Achilles heel of the Dutch, which is being mortified of being branded “racist”. DENK is going straight for the throat here, and chances are they get their orders straight from Erdogans cronies in Ankara.

    And here we see how labour PvdA is being bitten in the [backside] by their own stupidity. Because of their own political correctness. If you keep telling muslim immigrants over and over again, for 40 years how terribly discriminated they are against by those horrible white indiginous, islamophobic Dutch, even though they have it much, MUCH better here than in countries of origin, don’t be surprised if one day some of these people turn against you, because you’re not islamic enough yourself and you’re also one of those terrible white, and thus colonial Dutch oppressors and la-de-dah.

    So this is the bag we’re in.

    While the fact that these DENK guys were actually members of the House of Commons (BECAUSE of their Turkish background, btw) for PvdA ensures a lot of publicity media coverage (which is unfair to other new parties) they ramped up the PR by chosing a television celebrity, one Sylvana Simons as their official candidate and “the face of DENK”. Once she appeared on the scene, the amount of tv and media coverage received by DENK simply leaped off the scale.

    Mrs. Simons, who is of Surinamese / African descent and whose claim to fame is presenting an MTV like music televisio show dedicated to “urban music” (rap and hip hop), gained her celebrity status not in spite of, but BECAUSE OF her skin color. She has recently re-invented herself and came out of the woodwork as some kind of radical Black Power activist who is constantly talking about Malcom X being her hero, and the Black Panthers, all this kind of stuff. This is absolutely hilarious as she has NO IDEA what a real “ghetto” in the US is like. She is clueless.

    She herself split off from DENK, to form her own “anti discrimination” party.

    I predict DENK will get one or two seats, thus giving hardcore islamism representation.
    But Simons is not going anywhere.

    Here’s the DENK website

    https://www.bewegingdenk.nl/

  9. As far as Ms Hachchi is concerned, whether she was romantically involved with Mr. Pechtold I cannot say. It may be the case, or it may be speculation, who knows.
    What is certain, is that one day she simply went AWOL without further notice or explanation. This is quite unusual behavior, particularly for one who was elected into the Dutch House of Representatives, and should be serving the Dutch people, not campaigning for politicians from another country.

    Because after Miss Hachchi’s whereabouts were unknown for some while, she suddenly broke the radio silence, to announce she was “in the USA, working for the Clinton campaign”, insisting that she was invited by the Clinton campaign staff or some Dem bigwigs or think tank, who wanted specifically HER to “come work for us”, as she was some kind of famous PR person, consultant, political heavyweight, social media expert, campaigner strategist or what have you.

    I’m not buying this for a minute. It is highly doubtful that the Clinton campaign organisation would turn to a young woman from an insignificant country the size of a shoebox, a rookie who isn’t even a US citizen, for guidance, seeking assistance with something as important as the US presidential elections, but this is in fact how Miss Hachchi tried to explain her odd Houdini move.

    Needless to say, the entire Dutch establishment rallied behind Clinton (the Dutch government even donated 4 million Euros to the Hillary campaign!) during the electoral race, while Repbublican candidate Donald Trump was systematically portrayed as the anti-Christ, the new Hitler, or both.

    One little thing that set off all kinds of alarms with me, that was nonetheless COMPLETELY ignored by the Dutch media is the question HOW miss Hachchi could be “working for Clinton” in the US.
    Nobody picked up on this small detail, but I so happen to know that EU-citizens require a valid working permit to work in the US, and to acquire such documents is no small thing. It is a fairly complex matter that takes time and money. The potential employer does not only have to pony up a handsome sum for a working permit, they must also provide proof that the employee in question possesses certain unique skills and is capable of performing tasks that a US employee is unable to perform,

    It makes no sense. And if miss Hachchi, upon arrival at JFK airport or whereever, would have explained to the Homeland Security people that she is “going to work for the Clinton campaign” it would have been suspicious already. Homeland Security would have wanted to ask her some questions. If she had entered the US without a working permit visa, but on the “waiver program” like nearly all EU citizens do, then this would cause a problem. She would have been have confronted her with own waiver document, signed by herself, which clearly and explicitly states she is NOT going to work in the US, but is travelling to the the US for pleasure, or vacation.

    Such conflicting information would be enough for the Homeland Security people or an immigration officer to decide she may not enter the US, but is instead being sent back to Amsterdam on the next available flight. Really, THAT’S HOW THIS WORKS.

    Miss Hachchi probaly flew to the US to “be there” during the elections. Perhaps she needed some time to cool off. Maybe she had to be out of the picture as to not jcompromise Mr. Pechtolds or jeopardize his political career. She may have handed out a couple of Clinton flyers or pamphlets here and there. I don’t know,

    Once returned to the Netherlands, she penned a 16 page manifesto or pamphlet to explain her motivations, but no one really cares. She became an embarrassment. The fact that she has since disappeared from the public view completely and also cancelled her party membership suggests something strage is going on.

    Now she’s sitting at home, raking in almost 5 grand USD a month on the tax payer’s dime for the next 4 years without having to do anything for it.
    Which is kind of why we call the elite the elite.

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