Despite his resounding victory at the polls, I have always assumed Geert Wilders would never be able to form a cabinet — the Dutch oligarchs simply would not allow it. And indeed, according to our Dutch correspondent H. Numan, that seems to be the case.
No cabinet Wilders
by H. Numan
Gentle men and women, I’ve got bad news. Very bad indeed: a cabinet Wilders wont’ be coming. The elites will not allow it. They want to go for the other option: a conservative-communist cabinet. They aren’t negotiating to form a coalition, far from it. They’re negotiating in bad faith, trying to blame Wilders for their own mistakes. I have lived almost exactly 30 years in Thailand. In that time I witnessed many coups, coup attempts, coup attempts through the courts and failed coup attempts. My coup senses are tingling right now. I may be off, but I’m really worried I’m right.
The Dutch elections resulted in two viable cabinet options:
- A center-right cabinet with PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB. That cabinet would have 88 seats. BBB has only 7, but would be invited to counter a VVD-NSC majority.
- An ultra left-wing cabinet with PvdGL (Labor/Communists), NSC, VVD, D66. That cabinet would have 78 seats, 2 more seats than the bare minimum.
Other combinations are not possible. In both cases VVD and NSC have to decide which way they want to go. They only want to join a conservative coalition if forced to at gunpoint, otherwise they would much rather commit suicide by joining an ultra-progressive coalition.
It will take a long time before negotiations are finalized. Maybe even a full year. Forming a coalition is always difficult, mainly because politicians are extremely sensitive. In theory we could have a cabinet next week. PVV is a split-off from the VVD. They don’t differ that much on most topics. NSC is a rebranding of the CDA, and they don’t differ that much from the PVV either. It isn’t the policies that differ, but the people.
Before the elections Pieter Omtzigt (NSC) kept to the PVV boycott, despite a lot of opposition from his electorate. They are staunch conservatives, and definitely prefer a PVV cabinet. However, Omtzigt does not. The people he surrounds himself with who follow the leader are left-wing (ex) CDA politicians who also don’t want anything to do with the PVV. What the voters think is rather irrelevant to Omtzigt and his clique. He does exactly what he wants and nobody can convince him otherwise.
That’s why he was ostracized out of the CDA. It’s extremely difficult to work with someone who is borderline autistic. In case he doesn’t get his way, he’ll have or pretend to have a nervous breakdown. He has done it before, and will do it again. Imagine an unruly child throwing a temper tantrum to get what it wants. That’s Pieter Omtzigt.
Apart from that, his ideas are completely impossible to begin with. ‘We have to restructure our civil service’ sounds great, until you actually have to do it. Another one of his brain farts is a constitutional court. We don’t have one in The Netherlands. He wants to check all laws (especially those made by Wilders) in court. Hello? Anybody home? It’s a well known fact our courts are staffed by predominantly D66 judges, who hate Wilders so much they are even risking mistrials for it. Even, in the unlikely case he does gets his way, it will be years in the future. Kind of silly to say that Wilders has to follow the law to the letter, whereas his legal ideas don’t even exist.
There is even more. I told you a couple of years ago about a memo leaked by accident by the scouts of the previous cabinet. It showed ‘Omtzigt alternative position’ clearly to journalists who eagerly picked it up. Now of all people, the very same Omtzigt walks around with a memo ostentatiously showing ‘no PVV-NSC-BBB cabinet’. That’s very sick humor to me. Feeling mortally insulted when it happens to you, but a funny joke if you can repeat it on someone else.
The other person — yes, it’s personal — who hates Wilders is Dilan Yeşilgöz, the Dutch/Turkish/Kurdish leader of the VVD. During the elections she pretended a cabinet with the PVV was a possibility for her. However, the day before the election, she backpedaled on that. She doubted a cabinet with the PVV was possible. After the election she went even further. She doesn’t want to be part of the coalition because that would prevent her from being able to kill the coalition!