24-25 - Evers - Cast adrift

Dutch politics is fragmenting. daAn evers looks at why voters in the Netherlands are abandoning the centre ground

The current Dutch political situation is characterized by two features: (1) declining support for centre parties and (2) an unprecedented proliferation of new ones. Why has this occured?

Votes that were traditionally for centre parties now seem to move in two directions: to the left and to the right end of the spectrum. The Dutch Labour Party (Partij van de Arbeid) loses many votes to the most left-wing party on the scene: the Socialist Party (the Socialistische Partij). Smaller but still substantial portions of votes for the conservative party (the Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie) transfer to the new and more extreme Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid). Current polls suggest that if elections were held today, it might win as many as 20 seats. That would make it a middle-sized party in the Second Chamber (Tweede Kamer), a body of 150 seats.

The move to the left seems related to the Labour Party’s change from a traditional left-wing party to a modernized one (analogous to the change from Old to New Labour). They are willing to consider and have already agreed to privatization of public services, and are taking measures to reform current social institutions (grist to the mill of the Socalist Party with its protective attitude towards the welfare state).

Despite the Socialist Party only recently becoming one of the biggest parties in the Netherlands, it can hardly be considered new: it was established in 1972 and has been represented in parliament since 1994. The proliferation of new parties is almost exclusively restricted to the right. Over the past 5 years, the Netherlands has seen the rise and fall of several parties, all of which focus on problems surrounding the integration of ethnic minorities, and especially those from muslim countries (in particular Morocco). The Party for Freedom’s main theme is the protection of Western values against influences from the Islam. It has recently proposed to ban the Koran and supports deletion of the article against discrimination from the constitution. (In certain respects, the Party for Freedom resembles the British National Party, but unlike the latter, it doesn’t value race so much as culture.)

It is perhaps no surprise that the Netherlands is fascinated by the tension between muslim and secular cultures. For one, the entire world became interested after 11 September 2001. And of course there was the murder of Theo van Gogh by a muslim extremist in 2004. (Film director Van Gogh had made Submission with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which was a cinematographic pamphlet about the treatment of women in Islamic cultures.) But the attacks on the London underground and buses do not seem to have been followed by similar phenomena as occured in The Netherlands. There has been no proliferation of new political parties, and right-wing parties have not been significantly more successful. Part of this may be explained by the British first-past-the-post system, which makes it more difficult for new parties to enter parliament at all. But some of the events in the Netherlands may be specifically related to what is known as the ‘Fortuyn revolt’.

The Party for Freedom is the nth incarnation of the ghost of Pim Fortuyn. Fortuyn was a publicist and politician who was murdered in 2002 (although not by a muslim) nine days before his party was to enter the general elections for the first time. One of his objectives was to lift the veil of political correctness surrounding ethnic minorities. Until recently, it was customary to find most politicians praising the multicultural society. Fortuyn argued that integration had failed and that multicultural areas were often plagued by anti-social youths and small-scale crime. He also took a firm stand on Islam, which he considered a backward culture that posed a threat to Dutch society.

The polls predicted that Fortuyn’s party would do extremely well. Even after the death of its foreman, the Lijst Pim Fortuyn got 26 seats in parliament, making it the second biggest party in the country. (One might think that this unprecedented event was not so much despite but in virtue of Fortuyn’s death. However, most people think the party would have done even better with Fortuyn being alive.)

Fortuyn made a lot of play of the fact that mainstream politicians were arrogant and blind to the ordinary voter. His image as a messianic figure who came to liberate ‘the people’ created the impression, especially within low income groups, that his views were an expression of their sentiments. However, excepting immigration matters, I doubt that Fortuyn was in touch with some generally felt sentiment at all. For Fortuyn’s was not a single-issue party: he proposed reforms of the civil service, social security and healthcare. Despite the fact that post-Fortuyn governments carried out many of those reforms, they were among the least popular governments ever to have presided over the Netherlands. That is, except in one respect: their immigration and integration policies (personified by minister Rita Verdonk, who went so far in her uncompromising line as to attempt the eviction of fellow party member Ayaan Hirsi Ali, on the grounds that she would have lied about her name in applying for asylum.)

After Fortuyn’s death, the LPF perished due to internal conflicts and lack of leadership. Only four years after its insurrection, it did not win a single seat in parliament. Now the party is no longer in existence. The LPF’s unfortunate demise left people with the impression that the sentiment Fortuyn supposedly represented was never really served in parliament. This is why so many tried to establish new parties that were to mobilize it once again. But I think the current situation shows that there is no such feeling other than the aimless discontent that characterizes rich civilizations, fear of the Islam and annoyance with the antisocial behaviour of certain representatives of certain ethnic groups. This is illustrated by the fact that the only new party that has had some measure of success (although it remains to be seen how long it will last) is the Party for Freedom. It, however, is hardly more than a single-issue group, whose success entirely depends on anti-Islam rethoric and the disproportionate attention that is paid to it by the media.

If there is any particular sentiment brewing in the Netherlands, it is not so much the feeling that things have to change, but that things should stay the same: a liberal country with generous social arrangements. This would explain both the movement to the left and the movement to the right of the electorate. Even though reforms of social services are generally motivated by the desire to retain them, many people fear that those reforms are the prelude to a less abundant future. Similarly, the unchecked immigration of people from foreign countries may be the prelude to a different kind of country (especially if paired with a laissez-fair attitude towards their integration). If the Dutch electorate has broken adrift, it is because it is unsure where to turn in order to assuage both of these anxieties. The centre parties seem too flaccid, but a traditional left-wing ideology is not often paired with harsh anti-immigration language.

Daan Evers is a PhD candidate studying philosophy at Jesus College.