14 replies to this topic

[Shirou]

Please read before voting

Since there is a considerable number of dutch members around, this topic serves the same purpose as the one for the UK. Where that country is currently struggling for acceptance of a coalition government, this system is pretty much normal for us. In fact, in the current polls there may not even be three (!) parties who can realistically form a coalition.

The main parties are PvdA (Labour), CDA (Christian Democrats) and VVD (Liberals). On the right side is the Freedom Party (Geert Wilders im sure you heard the name) and the left side has got some parliament seats divided by Groenlinks (literally, Greenleft) and the Socialist Party. Then I will conclude with the progressive center party named D66 and the small Christian parties Christian Union and (conservative) SGP. Worth a mention is the animal rights party, represented by two seats in the parliament to date and likely to remain there or even get more. The Netherlands is the only country with an actualy animal rights party in parliament, which caught attraction by quite some other EU nations. There is no district voting system making it relatively easy for small parties to get in the parliament, hence the diversity.

The most important programmes are public savings due to the crisis, economic policy, immigration and sustainable development. Economy and public savings are the largest issues. Immigration is the major of PVV. Sustainable development isn't really a publicly debated issue, but at closer inspection, every party except for the liberals of the VVD has rather radical environmental and sustainable reforms (notably with intensive meat production and energy concerns) in their programme that do make this very notable indeed.

The polls are as following: (Percentage of votes respectively parliament seats, of a total of 150 seats).

CDA 17,5 26
PvdA 19,2 30
SP 6,1 9
VVD 24,0 37
PVV/Wilders 11,8 18
GroenLinks 6,8 10
ChristenUnie 4,6 7
D66 6,1 9
SGP 1,7 2
Animal party 1,5 2

None of these parties has a really stable support, except for the SGP who just gets two parliament seats every time from the small minority of orthodox christains. This makes every election a real gamble not just between parties, but also between coalitions.

The most noted coaltions are:

Left side:

PvdA - Groenlinks - SP - Animal Party - D66/ The problem naturally lies in the fact there are five different parties here, D66 is an economic outsider, and it even is unlikely for this to get a majority. Because of the crisis, the liberals are at their best and thus this coalition has been made more unlikely. However, when it does get a majority this has my support, as its the most progressive coalition.

Center compromise:

CDA - PvdA - CU.

This was the coalition that ruled our country until it stumbled over the Afghanistan issue. Not enough seats, and moreover, there is no trust whatsoever that this will work seeing as Balkenende has now seated as Prime Minister in four different governments who all got terminated.

Right wing:

CDA - VVD - PVV.

This could potentially work for a majority, if only it weren't for PVV. This is a populist party whose poll results are largely dependant off short term publicity. Wilders has sunken from a top of 26 seats during the municipality elections, to 16 now. His party also has quite radical viewpoints and on the economic side he even has unrealistic left wing programs. Only the liberal party has never said anything about ruling with the PVV, but most other parties have said they won't likely consider a coalition with the PVV.

Purple

VVD - PvdA - D66.

Very likely to get a majority. However liberals conjoured with Labour will leave a battlefield before marching in a straight line. Up to D66 to draw that line, I hope they are up to it. Optionally, Labour could be replaced by CDA but that will likely not give a majority.

Interestingly, the race for the biggest party and the seat of Prime Minister, is very similar between the UK. There are the liberals (although less conservative than the Tories) with Mark Rutte and the Labour Party with Job Cohen fighting to be the biggest party. A large part of the public has turned to the liberals because Job Cohen has been making mistakes, the populist PVV hasn't been keeping up the attention and the CDA has generally lost public confidence due to leading four governments down the drain. Thats my own analysis though, as the liberal party has so much (30 billion in four years, fucking insane) public savings in their programme, there has to be some reason for people to overlook that.

However as with every dutch election, you can never know for sure until the votes have been cast.

I will personally vote for Groenlinks, as I am an environmental sciences student and naturally find it my most important factor in the elections.

Discuss.

Edited by Trivmvirate, 29 May 2010 - 17:37.

[CodeCat]

My support goes to SP. I think Emile Roemer is doing nicely as a newcomer and he appeals to me more than Agnes Kant did.

However, I am not allowed to vote. I am what is called 'Latente Nederlander': Born from a Dutch mother and foreign father before 1985. As a result I have never received the Dutch nationality.

[Chyros]

IMO all really left-wing parties are nuts. Especially Labour and the socialists are convinced the best way to get our countries out of the economic crisis is by spending as much money as possible on useless nonsense, it seems. I'm going to vote liberals for sure, though I'm still in doubt as to whether I'm going to vote centre-left wing liberals (D66) or centre-right (VVD).

Christian Democrats and Labour will never make a coalition. They pretty much hate each other now that the cabinet has fallen over the Afghanistan issue. And to be honest I don't mind. The christian democrats are traditionally one of the two biggest parties but they are useless and completely transparent as they just do everything they are being told. This will break the weak stalemate that has rules the NL for a while now. Personally I'd wish for a coalition betwen VVD, D66 & CDA. Also, I don't think any party will ally with Wilders. Public hatred is just too strong against him as he is being ridiculed by everyone at every opportunity, and several prominent party pushers on several parties have vowed to cut their support to their respective parties if they ally with Wilders.

[Dutchygamer]

If I may give my uncensored opinion: they may all go to hell. Normally I ain't a fan of some ppl in the politics (Wilders, Rutte), but now with the elections coming up I'm beginning to hate every single one of them. All this media attention isn't doing any good either. Since when do we have public TV debates between the leaders of each party? Since when is it 'cool' for all parties to pick on 1 party (all parties picking on Cohen or Balkenende)? God, this is turning into the American politic style. The only thing that they aren't doing here (yet) is publicly humiliating the other parties in their political campaigns.
Also, the stupid reactions that some politicians make that some TV-shows are anti-blabla party bullshit is also stupid. Of course some TV-shows will be against your party because you want to take their money away.

tl;dr: I ain't a politics fan. Normally I don't really care which party I vote, but now I'm almost 100% sure I won't vote at any of those bastards.

[Camille]

hebben nederlanders geen stemplicht?

[Chyros]

Dutchygamer, on 28 May 2010, 18:46, said:

If I may give my uncensored opinion: they may all go to hell. Normally I ain't a fan of some ppl in the politics (Wilders, Rutte), but now with the elections coming up I'm beginning to hate every single one of them. All this media attention isn't doing any good either. Since when do we have public TV debates between the leaders of each party? Since when is it 'cool' for all parties to pick on 1 party (all parties picking on Cohen or Balkenende)? God, this is turning into the American politic style. The only thing that they aren't doing here (yet) is publicly humiliating the other parties in their political campaigns.
Also, the stupid reactions that some politicians make that some TV-shows are anti-blabla party bullshit is also stupid. Of course some TV-shows will be against your party because you want to take their money away.

tl;dr: I ain't a politics fan. Normally I don't really care which party I vote, but now I'm almost 100% sure I won't vote at any of those bastards.

Vote Pirate Party .

[Shirou]

Pffft, yeah sure because the left wing parties aren't going to destroy the welfare state in one term, they don't know how to run an economy? Perhaps if the financial market, running on the liberal model so venerated by the liberals, hadn't been flooded with egoism and greed, we wouldn't be in this position. Libertarian capitalism is an ullision, but liberal capitalism is slowly becoming one too.

If Labour can't regain itself and the VVD really becomes the biggest party we may have a problem, as there isn't really a stable good coalition to be made of the current polls, except maybe as Chyros suggested, a VVD - CDA - D66. If that does not get a majority, they will have to look into a new purple coalition (a dutch term for Labour, D66 and VVD). That will fail just as hard as PvdA + CDA in the current atmosphere.

I will be hoping for a minority coalition if VVD wins the elections. That will allow Neelie Kroes (former European Commissioner of Competition, and now EU Commissioner of Digital Media.) to become Prime Minster (I like her a 100 times better than Rutte) and will also surely put a slight hold on their rather unrealistic reforms due to a parliament minority. On a 'sustainable scale' the VVD scores nearly zero and they are still living in the illusion that we can simply continue consuming like this. However whenever the economy gives a little hiccup everyone tends to forget that

Camille, on 28 May 2010, 19:51, said:

hebben nederlanders geen stemplicht?

Nee, alleen een morele stemplicht, niet stemmen betekent ook niet zeuren.

Edited by Trivmvirate, 28 May 2010 - 19:18.

[Chyros]

Trivmvirate, on 28 May 2010, 21:10, said:

On a 'sustainable scale' the VVD scores nearly zero and they are still living in the illusion that we can simply continue consuming like this. However whenever the economy gives a little hiccup everyone tends to forget that

Sustainable sources of energy I'm assuming?

[Shirou]

No, sustainable consumption. Lately there has been quite some scientific and media attention towards the hazards of meat production and consumption as well (if you read a good paper you must have seen all the professors appealing for banning regular production) as a greater appeal for more biological production. The rise of the animal party is a perfect example of this. Most parties have included in their program a reduction of this overall consumption and a transition to biological production on a large scale, because agriculture has been rising to unsustainable levels since the end of world war 2. You should look those programs (and with that I don't mean Groenlinks only), its pretty radical and in fact in most cases unrealistic. However with stuff like this, its normal for political parties to set such goals, in hopes that at least a part of them can be achieved.

To give a little number. We (this is a study on the NL only) are currently consuming 150 percent of what our own area of land could produce for us. 50 percent of your food is grown from imported fodder and artificial fertiliser (kunstmest) that is won from a limited number of mines. Its the same story as oil. Our food production is running on fossil fuels and naturally those sources are declining as well.

Thats why it has been put on the agenda to make food production more sustainable so there is no more dependancy off import from fertilisers. Secondly I haven't mentioned the soil degradation that is globally occuring due to unsustainable production (decrease of natural organic matter in soils, the natural resource of plants). Due to this you need more and more fertiliser, destroying the environment by phosphate and nitrate pollution (notably the worlds most ignored but largest environmental problem). The focus is currently on phosphate as well, as this is the resource that is won from mines and it is getting wasted and spills into the oceans where you cannot get it back anymore.

So yeah, there is my rant. The VVD like a normal liberal party ignores issues like this as soon as the economy would only get a little bit hurt. I simply condemn that.

There is a 140 percent national consumption of proteins compared to what we need, so theres a viable reduction of protein intake (thus, mainly meat intake) of about 25 percent per capita easily possible without getting into any health concerns. If you look at the programs globally, thats also the number that on average would be reduced by all political parties together.

Im not really touching the sustainable energy part as its not my field and quite complicated. I have my opinions about it though.

Edited by Trivmvirate, 28 May 2010 - 21:42.

[Chyros]

Trivmvirate, on 28 May 2010, 23:21, said:

To give a little number. We (this is a study on the NL only) are currently consuming 150 percent of what our own area of land could produce for us. 50 percent of your food is grown from imported fodder and artificial fertiliser (kunstmest) that is won from a limited number of mines. Its the same story as oil. Our food production is running on fossil fuels and naturally those sources are declining as well.

Thats why it has been put on the agenda to make food production more sustainable so there is no more dependancy off import from fertilisers. Secondly I haven't mentioned the soil degradation that is globally occuring due to unsustainable production (decrease of natural organic matter in soils, the natural resource of plants). Due to this you need more and more fertiliser, destroying the environment by phosphate and nitrate pollution (notably the worlds most ignored but largest environmental problem). The focus is currently on phosphate as well, as this is the resource that is won from mines and it is getting wasted and spills into the oceans where you cannot get it back anymore.

What exactly is it you propose? I see some objections raised here but no solutions.

(although for reclaiming phosphates from water I think I already found a basic solution from a basic chemistry book but whatever)

[Shirou]

Well theres your problem with the sustainability issue in Dutch politics as well. Every party has these statements about reducing ecological footprint and reducing consumption but none of them has any real solution.

Social problems that have to do with the consumption culture are very hard to get by and there is a major threshold for stuff like actually reducing the amount of meat consumed per capita. Its very easy for a party to look sustainable and throw in numbers for a certain date (2020 is the popular one) but I think a minority of them has really thought about it and possible solutions and most just threw it on the programme under pressure of the scientific community.

Its a consumption problem, so the main solution would be to reduce that very thing. Technological solutions to problems created by the overconsumption have to be overcome as well, but that isn't my field (yet). It is very comparable if not similar to the energy issue, with exhaustion of natural resources being a drive next to environmental pressure.

Groenlinks on itself has absolutely unrealistic programmes about agricultural production (everything sustainable in 2020, yeah right). The top 10 on their list also, to my surprise, contains no environmental specialist, not even a scientist educated in any of the Nature sciences like Chemistry or Physics. Half my class wants to go study environmental policy for the same reason that people up there don't know what the fuck they are talking about. Only number twelve actually has some education in the field, if only on nature management and yet the guy is their foremost ''expert''. The rest are mostly politically educated figures (and an ex-Greenpeace director, oh yeah :S) and lawyers who made their career fighting for human rights which suddenly makes them green and all, and that shit, stuff I simply don't care as much about. Apparently fair trade is always thrown in the same bucket as sustainability. The Green Party is known for their environmental campaigns yet they don't put any expert in the parliament.

So yeah my vote for them is hardly justified when I talk about it (they also want to take away my money as a student) but I simply don't see a better option, and although the animal party is a last resort, its too one-issue for me.

_{John is trying to keep stuff ontopic. He could go on endlessly about environmental science but rather keep it in context}

Edited by Trivmvirate, 28 May 2010 - 23:48.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Reduce meat consumption per capita? Supply and Demand, buddy. If there really is this 'resource crisis' and if fertilizer and agricultural production is 'unsustainable', then naturally scarcity increases, price increases, and consumption decreases.

[CodeCat]

By that time it will be too late. The idea is to tackle the problem before it becomes an economic disaster.

[Chyros]

Trivmvirate, on 29 May 2010, 1:29, said:

The Green Party is known for their environmental campaigns yet they don't put any expert in the parliament.

Well this is one of my issues with GroenLinks and especially the Socialist Party tbh. Especially in debates they tend to be very vocal about how everything is so terrible, but never offer an alternative. I understand what you mean about not fully agreeing with parties though - I myself am smack down right between D66 and VVD and it's going to be hell to choose between them. Hence why I'm so interested in the upcoming election, since a liberal coalition is a very real possibility.

Quote

By that time it will be too late. The idea is to tackle the problem before it becomes an economic disaster.

Meh, we can always say some country with a lot of meat has weapons of mass destruction.

Edited by Chyros, 29 May 2010 - 11:25.

[Shirou]

CodeCat, on 29 May 2010, 12:00, said:

By that time it will be too late. The idea is to tackle the problem before it becomes an economic disaster.

Well yeah theres the problem with the advocated Libertarism, it always waits for shit to hit the fan before something happens to mitigate it. Staring blind on the virtues of free market is thus foolish in regard to sustainability problems.

Why can't we try to predict the future sustainability of our ways of life and try to mitigate them before your crises do it for us. Seems pretty logical to me.

Edited top post. Added Purple to the host of proposed coalitions. The papers embraced it this morning.

Edited by Trivmvirate, 29 May 2010 - 17:38.