Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has been in power since 2010
The results of a Dutch general election weren’t a surprise to anyone: current caretaker prime minister Mark Rutte has won the most seats, according to the latest projections.
With 88 per cent of the votes counted on Thursday afternoon, Mark Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) looks to have increased its vote share, with 35 of the 150 seats. “Unbelievable: fourth time in a row!” he told reporters after seeing the exit polls.
For outsiders to the country, it could well be seen as unbelievable.
In late January, the entire four-party coalition led by Mr Rutte stepped down in recognition of a childcare benefits scandal that unjustly labelled more than 10,000 parents as fraudsters, clawing back child benefits payments and leaving many in financial and personal ruin.
The tax office admitted that 11,000 dual nationality families were singled out for special scrutiny, and claims of institutional racism have yet to be fully investigated.
Many Dutch people have objected to lockdown measures that breach fundamental rights and have been difficult to apply in law.
After a 9pm to 4.30am curfew was imposed in January, the nation erupted in riots and hooliganism, and the latest anti-coronavirus measures protest last weekend led to demands from Amnesty International for an investigation into the use of “disproportional” police violence.
Last year, there were endless debates and legal cases about facemask wearing, and the roll-out of coronavirus vaccinations started out as one of the slowest in Europe.
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Some still question why the Dutch fail to update their Public Health Institute coronavirus death figures with the ‘actual’ number of likely coronavirus deaths established later by Statistics Netherlands.
But after all this, voter turnout was about 81 per cent and the vast majority seemed to support the status quo.
Liberal democrats D66, whose new leader Sigrid Kaag stood on a mandate of “new leadership”, freedom, equal chances and affordable housing, benefitted. The party looks to have increased its share of the vote from 19 to an expected 24 seats, displacing Geert Wilders’ far-Right Party for Freedom (PVV) as the second largest party in parliament.
Mr Rutte’s 2017-2021 coalition partner the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) seemed to be punished for recent government missteps, facing a loss of four seats to fifteen: perhaps it was a portent when CDA health minister Hugo de Jonge drove up to vote on Wednesday without his passport (or his driving license) and was sent home again.
There was a surge of voting on the far-Right, with a possible 29 seats in government for the bloc: the PVV, anti-lockdown Forum for Democracy (FvD) and splinter party JA21. The FvD, which just weeks ago seemed riven by an anti-Semitism scandal, apparently ignored coronavirus measures and took a campaign bus for mass rallies and benefitted, quadrupling its seats to a projected eight.
After the three-day voting period, with postal votes for the over-70s, the results look more complex than ever. Meanwhile, any coalition Mr Rutte needs to form must also represent a majority in the upper house, which is no easy feat.
“The extreme fragmentation of Dutch politics, and Rutte’s ideologically flexible position, makes predicting the precise outcome of the coalition negotiations difficult,” said Matthew Rodger at the The Economist Intelligence Unit. “Rutte will not only have to strike deals with parties in the lower house, but also form a secure majority in the upper house, where his previous government lost its majority in 2019.”
But they don’t call him Teflon Mark for nothing: the political survivor and deal-maker is ready for the next 10 years, he says. “The country is in a huge crises and there’s a lot of work for this government to do, but of course the coalition needs to be formed as quickly as possible,” he told reporters in parliament.
Pundits hope that, unlike last time, it doesn’t take 225 days.
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