On Friday Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the whole cabinet resigned, ushering in yet another political crisis in the Netherlands. Our Dutch correspondent H. Numan sends his cogent analysis of what’s happening.
King Willem-Alexander — ‘F**k, now I have to come back from holiday…’
Mark Rutte is dead. Long live Mark Rutte!
by H. Numan
It’s official. Prime Minister (almost for life) Mark Rutte announced the resignation of his cabinet to the king last Friday. The cabinet couldn’t agree on the issue of (more) refugees. Progressive partners (D66, CU) wanted more, more, more refugees. Mark Rutte looked at the polls, saw his party rising, and said: Nope. Less, less, less.
I’m not optimistic about the end of Rutte. Give the man credit where credit is due: he is the longest-ruling prime minister in our history. That’s certainly an achievement. You could also say he’s the slipperiest eel of the nation. Some prime ministers don’t last a full term, let alone four. Here we see a serious defect in our constitution: there are no term limits. The chance that a PM could be re-elected four times in a row was so insignificantly small that nobody took it seriously. Until Rutte did it. Now this character even plans to run a fifth time! Many dictators-for-life don’t make it to ten, let alone twelve years.
I’m even less optimistic about him being a proper caretaker premier. Officially he’s supposed to mind the shop, nothing more. Well, he was also caretaker premier during the beginning of the Covid crisis. He openly said he rather liked it, because it saved him the hassle of working with parliament. He has learned a lot since, namely that he can exploit any emergency as caretaker. We have so many emergencies and crises I’ve lost track: a severe housing crisis. Of course the global warming crisis. A refugee crisis, which caused the collapse of the cabinet. A nitrogen crisis, a pension crisis. The list is almost endless. Don’t forget the missing children scandal that caused his previous resignation.
I think he’ll take as much time as possible to postpone elections and the later formation of a new government. As there is a crisis (just pick one), legislation cannot wait and has to pass parliament. He can rule like the Kims in North Korea, but longer.
At the same time I’m not happy looking at the opposition. Wilders and the PVV have been marginalized. Yes, they are there. But the media only report negative news about Wilders. There isn’t any juicy gossip to report, so they report nothing. It’s like they have disappeared or no longer exist.
The only opposition party that matters is BBB, the Farmers’ Party. Unfortunately, they’re making beginner’s mistakes. Lots of them. First they gave away their majority in the senate because veteran progressive senators were easily able to compromise with the government. Newbie BBB senators weren’t. Now, at this very moment, Mrs. van der Plas lost a lot of non-farmer fans by supporting a highly controversial law that allows the government to confiscate property to house refugees. And that’s the reason why Rutte all of a sudden finds something he doesn’t have: a spine.
A bit about this property confiscation law. It gives the government the authority to remove people from their homes without compensation or notice. This law is democratic in the same way the Enabling Act was democratic in 1933. Given his penchant for perverting democracy into ‘dhimmi’ and ‘crazy’, something to be expected from Mark Rutte. The vast majority of those refugees are young muslim males coming from safe countries. All they want, in their own words, are: a free nice house, a good job the dole, free medical care, a free car and the right to reunite with their families (free of charge) as soon as possible. Many of them, I kid you not, want — demand even — that The Netherland converts to islam, because islam is good.
Which brings us to D66 or Democrats (19)66. The party split off from the conservative party. They moved quickly to the left and focus on a much more highly-educated electorate. It is not a communist party, though they copied just about everything that is bad in communism. Nepotism, corruption, extreme abortion/end of life points of view, that sort of thing. It’s the party for Young Urban Professionals, with a penchant for freelancers, judiciary and higher civil servants. Their political points of view can be found in the polls. Whatever is current today, that’s what they go for. Every ‘crown jewel’ has been given away in exchange for power. Raw unmitigated pure power. They are as far removed from democracy nowadays as your Democrats are.