How The Dutch Elections Came To Suddenly Interest Everyone

by Guest Thu Mar 16, 2017 6:47 pm

As the dust settles over the Dutch parliamentary elections, the international press corps are packing their bags with one last stiff drink to cover their disappointment as they head out to Schiphol Airport, hoping that France or Germany may deliver something more exciting.

At the end, Geert Wilders’s PVV only came second and will not even try to form a government. There was no “populist insurgency”, which pundits seemed to be pinning their hopes on. The “Dutch Trump” will not rule over this flat European state, which most political observers had rarely even thought of before these elections. Just as well, even if Wilders had come out on top, he would not have ruled over anything more than a one-man party and his Twitter account.

During the campaign, it seemed as if two parallel election cycles were taking place. The one was a two-horse “presidential” race in the international media between the incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Geert Wilders. The other, which had the advantage of actually happening, involved a myriad of parties fighting one another in a country with one of the lowest thresholds in the world. This became the real story, as the Dutch voters delivered a fragmented parliament with many smaller parties that will need to form a complex coalition.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-itay-lotem/dutch-election_b_15405220.html?utm_hp_ref=uk