An Idiot's Guide to Dutch politics(2023 edition)
Another round of elections is coming to the Netherlands, and this means that every pseudo-intellectual in this godforsaken swamp land suddenly feels the need to spew out their garbage because they think that their "well researched takes" contain gems of insight that clearly only their massive intellect could figure out. Of course in reality are most other people fed up with them ruining parties and social meetings with their inane bullshit but that won't stop them!
Thankfully as a connoisseur of garbage myself am I also eligible for giving my own takes, which means I can join in on the fun! I have therefore made for you all a simple guide which explains how we got here in the first place, how the elections work in the Netherlands and what parties are participating and where they stand. I shall then finish off with my own recommendations, as depressing as they are.
- How did we get here?
I have made a video about this subject a few months ago which goes into this subject. With that said is said video a bit outdated and I recognize that not everyone wants to watch a video so allow me to summarize. Since 2010 has the Netherlands been governed by a series of cabinets in which a political party called the VVD(more on them later) was always the largest party. We call these cabinets the "Rutte-kabinetten", named after Mark Rutte,our prime minister since 2010 and history's greatest monster. The cabinet that fell a few months ago was the Rutte IV cabinet, meaning that it was the 4th cabinet with him as prime minister. Now the reason this cabinet fell was because of one of the many scandals and disagreements that these cabinets have dealt with for the last 13 years. There was a discussion about the proposal of a new plan on how to treat migrants. This plan would categorize migrants coming to the Netherlands in 2 categories. Category A would be for those who are fleeing war and run the risk of being prosecuted and harmed in their home country, and category B would be for those who are fleeing war but do NOT run the risk of being prosecuted in their home country. The VVD wanted to make it harder for people from category B to stay here and reunite with their loved ones. This was something that some of the other coalition partners(most notably D66 and CU) found unwilling to do(1). So as a result the cabinet fell like a card house. Considering the urgency with which the VVD tried to push these plans through has there been some speculation that the VVD wanted the cabinet to fall deliberately so that they could be guaranteed of a reelection in the short term while they still have their current momentum, something they might not have in a few years. Of course this is only speculation by dastardly basement communists like myself and we have no proof of this. If this is the case however then it backfired immensely considering how this stunt and the subsequent departure of basically everyone who was important in the last 13 years politically, damaged their reputation so badly that they have sunk immensely in the polls(2).
In any case this all means that new elections are on the way and soon enough new elections were scheduled for the 22th of November. But how does this work? What exactly is a cabinet and who are in the running?
- How do I election?(Dutch edition)
The Dutch electoral system is surprisingly straightforward for the most part. With that said, is it somewhat different if you are familiar with the First Past the Post systems that are common in the Anglo-sphere. The Netherlands uses proportional representation, this means that each representative in the assembly(in this case the States-General or "Tweede Kamer") is elected by a roughly equal amount of votes. Unlike a lot of other countries does the Netherlands also not use any voting districts. In practice this means that if a political party can get enough votes to gain at least 1 seat for their candidates then this means that they are in, regardless where those votes are coming from(3).
This has a few upsides. The combination of proportional representation and a lack of districts means that each vote is worth the same, regardless of income level and geographic location. You are not gonna be screwed over and find yourself in a situation where your vote is worth less then others because you live in a low density area, something you see in the United States. This also means that you don't need to deal with an electoral college and electors, since there are no districts. Another upside is that this prevents two party systems from forming. Because the barrier of entry for political parties to get into parliament is relatively low you often have a wide range of political parties to split the vote. Which means that it is nearly impossible for one specific party to get a majority, hence why coalitions are a thing(which we call cabinets).
The system however is not without flaws. The fact that we don't have electors simplifies things but it also means that we cannot really hold people accountable. If there is a pressing issue in the region where you live in, then you don't have someone you can notify to bring it to the attention of the national government(of course in practice this does not happen in the US either, but it would be nice to have the formality). The fact that we also rely so heavily on coalitions means that it is actually quite difficult to pass legislation over here. Now this is a double edged sword since it means that it also prevents some of the far right stuff from being passed but it also means that genuine progress is either slow or non existent. Every proposal is debated on and altered till a compromise is made which satisfies neither side. This results that when we do implement solutions, it is usually a watered down version that does very little to address the original problem. All in all is our political system a mixed bag in my opinion. I like it's simplicity and how more democratic it is in comparison to a lot of other places, but it is not without it's flaws and like all systems is it susceptible to media hype or brainwashing.
When election day comes, most of us will cast a vote for a candidate for a political party. With enough votes that party will then get one or more seats in parliament. After the elections the party with the most seats will then deliberate with the King and invite some other parties to make a cabinet, these meetings are held in secret and what is discussed is usually not explained in detail. After a time period of meetings a new cabinet is formed out of a few parties(traditionally 2 or 3, but since 2010 has it not been unheard off to have cabinets consisting of 5 parties). The other parties that did not get into the cabinet then go into the opposition and the political circus continues anew for another 4 years(or the next time the cabinet falls prematurely).
- Bring in the Clowns, the political parties
As you can imagine has the system of the Netherlands allowed for a wide variety of political parties to rise and fall throughout the decades. It should also not be surprising then that there is a large variety of political parties to choose from. Nominally we have like most other countries a series of parties across the political spectrum. However in reality is our choice more limited then it looks. A lot of parties have overlapping agenda's and the fact that the overton window as a whole has shifted to the right quite a lot means that in practice your choice will be between some flavor of Liberal party or some flavor of Far Right party. Regardless what the party leaders say or what the party is called.
I will be going across every party that people will be eligible to vote on(4). These are not the only political parties that are active in the Netherlands but these the ones that are the most relevant to what our policy is gonna look like. So unfortunately this means that I will have to skip some of the more "esoteric" parties. I am very sorry to the people who wanted to hear more about the crystal healing party who are spreading antivaxxer rhetoric or the evangelical cult party which is an American import but I will not be covering those. I will be starting at the center right parties and then move from there to the far right parties to the center left parties only to finish with the rest. This should give us a clear overview about what our choices are and how our choice really does not matter.
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| Credit: derodelap.nl |
The center right(VVD, CDA, CU, D66 NSC)
It is generally considered bad form to judge a large group of people based on the largest political parties. With that said, if I were a shameless hack and were to look at a bloc of political parties that I think truly embodied the Dutch cultural spirit then it would be the center right block with these parties. Nearly all of these parties have been part of some major cabinet in the last 15-20 years. Nearly all of them agreed with the Neoliberal austerity politics and privatization that is destroying the livelihoods of people, and nearly all of them stood by and did nothing as the far right used the discontent that the political decisions of these parties had wrought, to bolster their voting bases and gain political power. As a legally disabled person have I been on the other end of their policies more then a few times and I can assure you that my feelings in regards to them can best be summarized as a "cold hostility". With that said do I also have a duty to not let my own biases cloud my judgement.. at least not too much, so I will attempt to give an overview to show what they are about while leaving the emotional baggage at home.
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VVD
VVD is an acronym which translates to "People's Party of Freedom and Democracy". From that title you would think that they are some form of left wing party but nothing could be further from the truth. The VVD is a party that is Neoliberal to the core. I should note that "Liberal" in a Dutch context means something very different then Liberal in an anglo-centric context. Liberal parties in the English speaking world will at least pretend that they care about the rights of others. Not so much with these guys. Sure they might not actively speak hate speech or actively persecute marginalized groups but their policies of austerity and privatization often tends to hit people of color more then it does upper middle class Dutch people. The VVD's political program is filled with self congratulatory rhetoric about how they "saved the economy after the 2008 financial crash" and how they are "there for the middle class"(05). It also shows us how more rightwards they are moving. Their plan to get reelected backfired immensely and as a result there was something of a changing of the guard at the VVD. Much of the old political establishment retired or left politics, allowing a new group to take their place. A new group that is more willing to work with far right parties like the PVV, as shown by comments made by new party leader Yesilgöz(6). Thankfully has this changing of the guard also meant that they have fallen somewhat in the polls but if they once again become the biggest party in the country then there is a big chance that we might get a Neoliberal-Far right coalition from hell.
CDA
CDA are the Christian Democrats. Christian Democracy is a weird school of political thought that never quite reached North America so this party might look strange to the North American public. I will give a quick recap. Christian Democracy is a collection of political thought that tries to reconcile Christian social thought with Liberal Democracy and Capitalism. In practice this means that they are overall pretty conservative in their ideas and what they do, and all in on market Neoliberalism. But they are also quite willing to use the state to counter Neoliberal policies if they feel that it clashes with their Christian ideas. CDA was for a long time one of the great players in the Netherlands. Being formed when a group of Christian conservative parties merged together in 1977(including one party whose entire shtick was being angry at the advances made by the French revolution which is just really funny to me). They have always held a significant share of the Dutch voting base culminating in them being the largest party in the Netherlands during the 2000's. To make a long story short, everything the VVD is hated for, the CDA did first. Recently however they have lost a lot of support when one of their most prominent members left to form his own political party and took a significant portion of their voter base with him. Judging from their party program for the elections are the CDA following the general trend of the Dutch political parties in becoming more authoritarian(7). It remains to be seen if this will help them out. Though in my personal opinion would I not mind them becoming another party delegated to the garbage bin of history.
CU
ChristenUnie(CU) is weird. They are a small conservative Christian political party that due to their willingness to work with the bigger parties are usually invited to cabinet formation talks. Everything I have ever seen of them suggests to me that they are a conservative party. Basically CDA but less important and less interested in the market. And yet these last few years have they surprised me positively with some weird pseudo left wing comments and ideas. During the fall of the last cabinet was it CU that spoke out the most against the VVD's plans to tear apart families. Not to mention that CU has recently been pushing to build up healthcare again(8). On the other hand has CU also been somewhat hesitant in their acceptance of trans people(9). This all tells me that out of the Christian parties in the Netherlands that they are probably the most consistent one and I can see their appeal from a layman's perspective. Not gonna lie I am not even sure if their classification here as a center-right party is even a 100% accurate but I am placing them here anyway because they also participated in the austerity politics of the Rutte cabinets. As a queer person myself who has been on the other end of fake Christian moralizing more then a few times, I distrust them.
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D66
The Democrats 66 are centrists to the bone. If you were to look up the definition of the word "centrism" in a dictionary then you would see a picture of their logo right next to it. Recently has D66 made an attempt to pivot somewhat to the left to shake off their image as centrists, with mixed results. Because of this left wing pivoting have they unfortunately also been the target of your average Dutch Right wing shithead, with many people accusing them of being "filthy communists who are destroying the country"(regardless of how untrue this statement is). This has has led to a few incidents where prominent D66 politicians like Rob Jetten(a gay man) and Sigrid Kaag(a woman) have had these chucklefucks walk out to their houses with torches and threatening them. Needless to say has this not exactly been received well by most D66 politicians and has this led to them supporting some of the more authoritarian measures that have been taken in these last few years against protesters. Measures that predominantly target left wing protesters I should add(11). Reading through their political program the main word that comes to my mind is "greenwashing". They put a lot of emphasis on their plans to tackle climate change but most of these plans are either insufficient or putting their trust in weird Neoliberal schemes that are probably not gonna work in the long term(12). Considering their history of participating in austerity and their somewhat milquetoast program am I very much not convinced that D66 has made a pivot to the left. To me this is a shameless marketing ploy in an attempt to capture the disgruntled former PvdA voter(more on them later).
NSC
Nieuw Sociaal Contract. New social contract. With a pompous and pseudo-intellectual name. This a new political party that was formed shortly after the fall of the cabinet by former CDA politician Pieter Omtzigt. Omtzigt is well known in the Netherlands since he and a few SP politicians were the main people who managed to uncover the child benefits scandal. A scandal in which social services had been racially profiling non white and non Dutch families and plunging them into financial ruin. A system that Pieter Omtzigt also of course helped set up but that part is conveniently left out of most narratives. Truth to be told is there not a lot to be said about NSC. They are a new party that as far as I can tell aims to be CDA 2.0(10). They do seem to be doing well in the polls but that is mostly due to the popularity of Pieter Omtzigt himself rather then any policy they are proposing. It remains to be seen whether NSC can form their own identity, or if they instead just become another party that is another vanity project of a charismatic person. Those latter parties are way too common in the Netherlands already and we really don't need more of them.
The Far Right(PVV, FvD, Ja21, BBB, BVNL)
Most European countries have only one major far right political party. The Netherlands has five of them. Next to the aforementioned center right parties is this probably the second biggest political group of parties in the country. In true Dutch fashion have we managed to acquire an eclectic collection of Fascist creeps and Neo-Nazi weirdo's to vote on. Our only saving grace is that they all hate each other and don't like working together. As a result have they developed what I can only describe as two streams of Far Right thought in the Netherlands. We have the more traditional Dutch centric school, as embodied by the PVV and to a lesser extent BBB, and we have the American/Russian import school as expressed by the FvD and to a lesser extent Ja21. The main differences in these are that the Dutch school in general goes for a more traditional Dutch Far Right political project, meaning that there is more of an emphasis on "safeguarding the Dutch nation from foreign migrants" while at the same time adopting popular left wing talking points like rebuilding the welfare state. The American/Russian group on the other hand tends to put a bigger focus on conspiratorial thinking. Often talking about the "establishment" and how "globalists" are destroying the country. While at the same time going all in on the more Right Wing Libertarian ideas of free market capitalism with no state intervention. Both of these schools are equally dangerous if their ideas are implemented but in two very different ways and I think it is important that we keep this in mind while discussing these parties.
The oldest still extant Dutch Far right political party, the PVV is foremost the political vehicle of one man: Geert Wilders. There are other people in the party but Wilders is by far the most important one. He is the main spokesperson for the party. He is the face of the party and it can safely be assumed that whatever statement the PVV as a whole makes is synonymous with him making said statement. The PVV was formed by him after the murder of far right politician Pim Fortuyn, and since then has this party been a plague on this country. Over the years they managed to build a steady voting base. Growing more Islamophobic each year and coaxing in your average white Dutch person with promises of returning to the good old days of the welfare state and without any of those pesky immigrants /massive sarcasm. With that said has their growth been limited somewhat in recent years with the rise of other far right parties like the FvD. The political program of the PVV is straightforward. No immigrants, no money for climate change, no EU and a return to our old currency(13). It is the standard PVV fanfare. Blunt, poorly thought out and unrealistic but effective in it's language. It is not surprising that they have managed to build up a voting base of people burned by the Neoliberal austerity politics. The success off the PVV is as much a failure of the center right parties as it is a success on smart public relations by the PVV. Though of course the funding of Russian and American sources help as well(14)(15). With that said has their relative success in the last 15-20 years definitely changed the political landscape of the Netherlands and not for the better. Like a Neo-Nazi seagull has the PVV descended upon us, shat all over the place and is now flapping around, harassing people. The seagull is a protected species but I would not mind someone putting this one out of it's misery.
FvD
The other big Far right party and the main rival to the PVV. FvD is a newer party lead by pseudo-intellectual and bootleg American Psycho protagonist: Thierry Baudet. During the mid to late 2010's they manage to overtake the PVV as the main scary far right political party. At the beginning they presented themselves as the party for the right wing "intellectual" with Baudet presenting himself as a modern philosopher(what people have dubbed the "Jordan Peterson aesthetic"). And indeed at the start this worked out well for them. They got some decent election results and managed to establish themselves as an alternative to PVV. Of course in true far right fashion they completely squandered this by blundering through assignments of politicians in the provincial councils they had won which led to the collapse of cabinets in several of the provinces. This was then followed by the departure of several key figures within the party due to Baudet not wanting to share power and the exposure of Neo-Nazis that were happily trotting along their ranks. Since then has the FvD become more... unhinged. Openly spewing conspiracy theories in parliament and talking about "tribunals"(16). The FvD is now the most mask off far right party in the Netherlands and I feel pretty safe in calling them Fascists. The party program of the FvD has not really changed much in the past and this year it remains much of the same(17). Much emphasis is put on breaking up the alleged "party cartels" that exist in the Netherlands, followed by points about fighting against the "Transgender propaganda" and other far right crap. Honestly the program is pretty disappointing. Boring and uninteresting in stark contrast to how the FvD acts in real life. The main departure is a greater emphasis on less government intervention in the commercial life of the Netherlands. An American import that undoubtedly is the result of some Russian or American donation(18). It is tempting to laugh at the FvD as a party for crazy conspiracy theorists and weirdo's but I would like to remind everyone that these conspiracy theorists have become extremely ubiquitous and numerous the last few years and also the fact that their rhetoric has already led to a literal death toll(19). As far as I am concerned have Thierry Baudet and the rest of the FvD blood on their hands and is the fact that they are still allowed to have a platform a massive failure of our society.
Ja21
The first FvD offshoot. Formed by a group of former FvD politicians in late 2020/early 2021 when some internal whatsapp group correspondence of the youth wing of the party leaked out and revealed a lot of Neo-Nazis stuff. These politicians seeing how bad this was for the optics then proceeded to leave and form their own party. In the past I have often called Ja21 a Fascist party for people who don't like to be called Fascists. Make no mistake, they might publicly condemn far right ideas but they are still far right to the core. Ja21 has in the past often made statements about being Anti-woke(20) and their political program is very clear in their racist views on immigration(21). Quite frankly the only difference I see between them and the FvD is the fact that they at least have the good sense to keep their mouths shout about whatever revelation they had about water fluoridation or something. Avoid like the plague.
BBB
One of the best videos I have ever made was a video on the Dutch farmers movement which this party is tied to so I would highly recommend you watch that video if you want more info about the movement as a whole(22). In any case is BBB the reactionary farmer's party and the main political extension of that movement. Their main leader is Caroline van der Plas, a former journalist who is known for lying and making shit up to slander climate activists(23). BBB is a borderline single issue party. Mostly being concerned with the "plight of the Dutch farmer". It is very clear that they are the political voice of agricultural millionaires with all of the baggage that entails. They can make up whatever story they want, in the end they serve big business just as every other party. Like most populist parties are they echoing the same racist lies about immigrants(24) and is their program very right wing economically speaking. If I am completely honest am I not sure if they have the steam to sustain themselves. Yes they performed alarmingly well during the last provincial elections but they have lost a lot of support since then due to their contradictory messaging and not every farmer's organization supporting them(and the BBB actively shooting themselves in the foot with some of their policies screwing over poorer farmers). With that said are they still a threat to marginalized groups should they find themselves in a major position of power. We are already seeing this with the rising water management board taxes for everyone they managed to instate recently(25). A rise in taxes that hits the average citizen more then the average farmer.
BVNL
Another FvD offshoot. This party is the vehicle of Wybren van Haga, who for a long time was in the top of the FvD. He decided to leave due to disagreements with Baudet because Baudet referred to the COVID lockdown measures as being similar in nature as when the Netherlands was occupied by the Nazis during WW2. Honestly out of the Far Right political parties are they among one of the newest but also one of the most boring ones. Their political program feels like a carbon copy of the other far right parties(26). Less immigration, harder on crime yada yada. This of course still makes them dangerous but they lack the flair that the other parties have or an identity that makes them stand out. Just boring
The "Left"(Groenlinks-PVDA, SP, PvdD, Bij1)
Where do I even begin here? People who talk to me on the regular are probably well aware of the fact that I am not a big fan of left wing parties in the Netherlands. Most of this is due of the fact that they(and Dutch society as a whole) has shifted rightwards pretty badly, to the point that I hesitate to call most of them even left wing anymore. The brainrot of Neoliberalism has hit them hard and as a result they have moved rightwards both socially and economically in an attempt to appeal to the Liberal voter. Of course what they don't realize is that this is always a bad idea for two main reasons. First and foremost, they can never get the liberal vote because nothing they can offer can top what they can already get with the center-right parties. SP can talk about appealing to small businesses all they want, those same small businesses are well aware that they can get a much better deal by voting on VVD. Secondly, by appealing to liberal voters are they alienating their own voting base. From my conversations with other Dutch left wing people exists there a general tendency that they have been abandoned by these parties and therefore don't really feel the need to vote for them anymore. I myself have been feeling this as well. To me almost every Dutch former left wing party feels horribly out of touch with the people they are supposed to represent and I genuinely don't understand why they think that this course of the last 5-10 years is a good idea. Unfortunately for us do we not really have much an alternative, and they are very much aware of this so we are forced to put up with their bullshit.
GroenLinks-PVDA
Seeing that their strategy of abandoning everything they and their predecessors stood for is not working out, have the labor party and the green party decided to work together for this election. It remains to be seen if this temporary fusion will be permanent but so far it does seem to help somewhat considering that they are currently the highest left wing party in the polls. Talking about the history here is somewhat tricky considering we are technically dealing with two parties in one. PvdA is the oldest Dutch left wing political party. Being a re-branding of the old Social Democratic Worker's Party after WW2. They are responsible for most of the good parts of the former Dutch welfare state and much of the social progress we made in the 20th century over here. However halfway during the mid 1980's they decided to embrace Neoliberalism and this has lead to a complete collapse of the same welfare state they once set up. PvdA has a bad reputation with Dutch leftists because they stood and watched as the center right parties destroyed the country. Not even once did they speak out against the austerity measures that destroyed communities and destroyed lives. This culminated in them losing massive support in 2017 where they suffered the worst electoral defeat of any political party in Dutch history. Going from 38 seats to just 9 seats(27). A defeat from which they have never really managed to recover. Joining up with GroenLinks seems like a tactically smart move since they are hoping to recover from that. But the fact that they put Frans Timmermans(Someone who has been described as the Right winger of the PvdA) in charge does not inspire confidence. As for GroenLinks it seems to me that they are getting the short end of the stick. Being formed by a fusion of 4 smaller left wing political parties(including the former Communist party and Pacifist Socialist Party) in the early 90, they too have shifted massively to the right(in comparison to their predecessor parties). Starting out as a environmental party, they eventually began to include more broader left wing issues in their programs as well. The general vibe I always got from GroenLinks is that they are stuck in the middle. They don't want to rock the boat too much. They want to improve things for the environment but not at the costs of profit margins. The fact that they have supported Dutch war efforts in Afghanistan in the past is a good example of their inconsistency(28). A trend that seems to continue in the political program of this new fusion(29). It remains to be seen if this will work out for them or if this will lead to a nasty divorce between the parties.
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SP
Oh SP... What shall we do with you? The Socialist Party has been the subject of an earlier article of mine a few years ago where I talked about how they expelled all Marxists and Anarchists from the party(30) in what I can only describe as a purge of anyone that dares to criticize the party leadership. It is also saddening but unsurprising to report that they have only moved more rightwards in the interim. Party leadership has spoken out against "wokeisme" and taken a more hardline stance against refugees(31). Taking all of this in mind it becomes very clear that the SP is trying to take a page out of the PVV and go for the populist voter. However like the PvdA and GroenLinks before them is this a strategy that will not work out for them because again, the average PVV voter is well aware that the PVV can offer them more then the SP ever can. What remains is therefore a party that is flat out unrecognizable from what it was maybe 5 years ago. Every time I think about this it just makes me really sad. SP used to be the go to party for me to vote on but in this current state I would not even dream on voting on them let alone recommend them. The party has gotten so bad that their members are now showing up at transphobic TERF rallies(32). When I wrote my article I was hopeful that maybe with a different party leadership the SP would be salvageable but now I am not so sure of that anymore. I sincerely hope that ROOD/De Socialisten can pick up the pieces in the future since I don't see the SP recovering from this.(side note: ROOD/De Socialisten are not participating in the upcoming elections hence why I won't be discussing them today).
PvdD
The Animals Rights Party has always been one of the "safe" options. Though not technically a single issue party, they are mostly focused on animal welfare and honestly this is a good thing. Their party program for these elections go all in on combating climate change and honestly there is not a lot there I can criticize(safe for their apprehension for nuclear power but that is a whole other story)(33). Truth to be told is there not a lot I can say about the PvdD in general. I call them a safe option because although they have some lofty goals, they also have no proper radical spirit in them whatsoever and as a result have they basically no ties with the Dutch left wing activism world which honestly is a point against them. Also they too seem to be susceptible to the infighting that has been happening recently. Considering a minor power struggle was happening not too long ago for which the details are not really clear(34). I don't think a lot is gonna change for them though. My prediction is that they are gonna grab a handful of seats again as always and then proceed to try to get in some motions to fight climate change, only for those motions to be shot down by almost every other party. My advice to them is to maybe look into the more activist side of things and see if you can make some alliances outside of electoral politics as well. I think that you will find more friends there and grow your support that way.
Bij1
The newest left wing political party and honestly the only one that I would truly classify as left wing. Bij1 has by far the best political program of all of the parties in the Netherlands(35) in my opinion. A strong focus on fighting inequality, they put emphasis on fighting racism and discrimination of all kinds. They even want to democratize work places which is basically Socialism in all but name. An amazing goal for which they deserve my thumbs up. Unfortunately because their main spokesperson is a black woman and the Netherlands is racist as fuck are they often the target of slander and libel campaigns by both Liberal and Far right outlets. Sylvana Simons is often portrayed as a screaming witch who is only angry all the time, something that is both racist and misogynist. I don't blame her for stopping her work at Bij1 and moving on with her life, though that does bring me to my next point. I am not sure how much survivability Bij1 has left without Sylvana. The party has had in the past more then a few times where there was infighting and where the stability of it was put to question and without her to hold the glue together am I not sure if it has a future. I want Bij1 to succeed and get successful but I cannot say I am confident enough that it will survive in the longer term.
The rest
The remaining political parties are either single issue parties or parties that are so small or irrelevant that they might as well not matter. Some of these parties might grab some seats but the majority of them won't. I am gonna start with the largest parties and work down from there, keeping it short.
SGP
I was seriously considering putting the SGP with the other far right parties. They are an extremely conservative Christian Reformed party that opposes abortion and gay marriage and before recently didn't even allow women to join up with them. Basically the Westboro Baptist Church if they were a political party. The main reason I am putting them here is that outside of a few specific geographic places they never managed to get a lot of support from the general populace... for reasons that I hopefully won't need to explain. Extremely conservative and Christian, however with the way things are going I could see a future in which they gain more power sadly.
DENK
Ostensibly a party that is supposed to defend the rights of immigrants and people of non Dutch descent in the Netherlands. However it is kind of an open secret that they have ties to Erdogan and the Turkish government in all of it's authoritarian glory. This means that they are simultaneously loved and hated by a lot of people. I cannot tell how popular this party is among the minority groups in the Netherlands but I can imagine them being divisive. Because this party is made up mostly of non white Dutch people do they also often get slandered by the media.
Volt
Pan-European Technocratic Federalists. Volt is part of a larger movement in Europe that seeks to tie the European countries closer together into a more centralized Europe. They are horribly liberal to the core however and without the entire European federalism thing am I not exactly sure what they bring to the table that is not already done by the VVD or the other Center Right parties. They also tend to annoy me on a personal level and I am not quite sure I can explain why. Maybe it is just the dumb naivety with which they conduct themselves, or the fact that the Volt movement has become the most successful in the Netherlands. In any case, another liberal party that should not exist in my opinion.
50Plus
Literal boomer party. A party that is there for the elderly. In a better world would they be tackling age discrimination and fighting for better healthcare for the elderly, but in our reality are they mostly very conservative and shifting all the costs of things to the younger generations. My apologies to any people from the baby boomer generation who are reading this but you all seriously need to get better people to represent you all because this party sucks ass.
Piratenpartij-De Groenen
Pirate politics are to my knowledge mostly an European thing and pirate parties differ even from country to country. In general however are they mostly proponents for better privacy laws, reform of outdated copyright laws and e-democracy. It seems that in this case they have pulled a PvdA-Groenlinks and joined forces with a small environmentalist party. Honestly I have no real complaints here. I have voted on the Pirate Party in the past and though I do not think that they are gonna be relevant anytime soon do I also think that you can do way worse in terms of political parties. I wish them the best of luck.
Splinter
WHY DOES THIS PARTY EXIST? Do we seriously need another Liberal party? Our political system allows us to make parties to represent even the smallest of single issue politics but instead these bastards use it to make either more garbage Liberal parties or far right parties. I genuinely don't know what Splinter has to offer that you cannot get by voting on the VVD. I do like the logo they have but there is literally no reason for this party to exist. You all need to stop!
Libertaire Party
Right wing Libertarianism has never done well in the Netherlands and it is not surprising why. The Netherlands has a history of a strong welfare state so ideologies that advocate for removing that state and putting it all in the hands of the market are not gonna be very popular. Of course that won't stop people for voting on VVD or CDA who basically do the same thing but LP is at least honest about it. They are on the fringes of the Dutch political world and they will probably stay that way. Also keep them away from kids.
LEF
Not gonna lie, before I got my voting list in the mail didn't I even know that this party existed. A quick glance at their website tells me that they are some kind of party aimed at the younger voters. People in their early 20's who got screwed over by the austerity politics on student financing particularly. I don't think this party is gonna be very popular but I still wish them the best of luck. They do seem to have the right ideas at least.
Samen voor Nederland
Taking a look at their website and party program I get very strong "conspiracy theorist on facebook" vibes. To me this looks like a reactionary party that is probably trying to aim for the facebook conspiratorial shithead vote. The next iteration of Lijst30 in the last elections. Like Splinter do I honestly think that this party has no right to exist. Avoid like the plague.
Nederland met een plan
What even is this? A party that comes from the Asian communities in the Netherlands but is like weirdly centrist? I cannot make heads or tails from this and again, I don't know what this offers that cannot also be done by other parties.
Partij van de sport
I swear I have read Donald Duck comics as a kid that had this party as a joke in a story at some point. A party based on sport and movement? Is that really the biggest issue we are facing right now? Like I get that I am biased as the stereotypical nerd that I am but what is even the plan here? Mandatory sport lessons? Best of luck I guess.
Politieke Partij voor Basisinkomen
Political party for basic income. I mean it is right there in the name is it? They get points for being so direct and having one good idea but I don't see them growing large anytime soon.
- What party should you as a leftist vote on?
I am not gonna lie. For me has voting always been more of a case of voting on the least shit rather then voting on the best. My main issue with representative democracy is ironically how undemocratic it is. You put a vote on a party and then hope it gets enough seats to get into parliament. You then hope it can then either get into a coalition or the opposition and then hope that said party will do the thing you want it to do without it being watered down in a compromise that effectively makes it useless. This all assumes that the party you vote on has your best interests in mind and isn't just using your vote to gain political power and follow it's own agenda.
I have in the past been burned pretty badly by voting on parties who then got into power and proceeded to do the exact opposite of what I wanted. Needless to say with the Dutch political landscape getting more and more right wing am I not exactly confident in any of the parties doing what needs to be done to actually make progress and fix the issues our society is facing right now. The Dutch left is in shambles and at this point I would hesitate to call most of them even left wing. I cannot emphasize enough how much damage was done by European social democratic parties adopting Neoliberalism. With that said I don't think we are completely out of options yet.
It should go without saying that all of the center-right and far right parties are gonna be a no go. It is tempting to go for the Far Right parties that adopt left wing economic ideas like the PVV but considering the plans for cultural genocide that the PVV has in store do I think that this would be a legit awful idea. Which leaves us with the left wing and other parties. On the left wing do I honestly think that Bij1 is the most viable option. They have the best party program and are the most committed to left wing ideas. Keep in mind however that a vote on Bij1 might be wasted vote considering the future of this party is somewhat up in the air. That is a risk you will have to decide for yourself if you are willing to make it. The only other option in the left wing that I would even consider remotely viable would then be PvdD, the animal rights party. This is a very "safe" vote because PvdD is already a well established party but keep in mind that they are very much mired in the same Liberal civility politics as almost every other party. This means that they have basically zero ties to the left wing activism world and lack the radical willpower necessary to make the sweeping changes that are required. The way I see it is a vote on PvdD a low risk vote but also one with low expectations. Esther Ouwehand isn't gonna storm a factory farm and free all of the animals is what I am saying.
For the remaining 2 left wing parties. I consider both to be not really an option. SP used to be my go to party to vote on but their flirtations with the far right have alienated them so far from proper left wing politics that I cannot in any good conscience recommend them. As for PvdA-Groenlinks. I have heard the argument that it would be strategic to vote for them since they can form a counterbalance against the center right parties but honestly I am not so sure of that. Strategic voting is not really a thing in Dutch politics due to how our system works. Even if Pvda-Groenlinks gets a fuckload of seats is there no guarantee that they would get into a coalition. They would need other left wing parties to join them and all of them have basically already flat out stated that they are uninterested in working with them. Meaning that the only other viable options for them would be the center right parties. This kind of kills whatever progressive ideas they had left because those are gonna be watered down in a compromise now, provided they even get in. So no I would not consider a vote on PvdA-GroenLinks to be a strategic one.
As for the remaining parties, the smaller ones. Honestly the only one even worth considering would be Piratenpartij-De Groenen. They are probably the most "left wing" of the remaining parties and already have a lot of experience with elections as well. It should also be noted that as far as I can tell that they are the only ones with some kind of plan in place to mitigate the negative effects and consequences of Neural Networking/AI. With that said are they very much a limited issue party so don't expect them to lead a revolution. For the other parties are they are either too liberal/far right or too single issue to really matter. Keep in mind that I am not expecting most of them to get any seats, including the pirate party.
Anyway those are my voting recommendations and honestly they are not very good. However I can also offer you an alternative, something that might not do a lot but would probably feel a lot more cathartic. The Anarchist option. When I still did activism there was some debate among our community about the use of voting. One side posited that we had to vote because although we abhorred the hierarchy of the state, we still had to live in it so we might as well use it. The other side however posited that voting was essentially pointless and only encouraged electoral politics. Personally I am somewhere in between. I often think that voting is pointless in our system but in the past I still did it anyway since as small as the political power that I can implement is, it is not nothing. However in these last few years I have seen parties blunder all over the place. Every decision that was made was a wrong one and I have honestly been disgusted by statements made by all politicians across this spectrum. So allow me to offer a third option. Declaring your vote invalid. On the practical level, this will do nothing. You will just draw a dick on your ballot or something and piss off whatever poor sod has to do the counting. On a symbolic level however it means something. It means a rejection of the current system and all that it stands for. It is a rejection of hierarchy, oppression and a cry for liberation. At the very least you might feel better about it afterwards.
Now I am not saying that this is the best option or one you should necessarily do. I cannot tell you exactly what you should vote on or do after all. But I am telling you that this option is out there. And who knows, maybe if enough people reject the system we might be able to actually build up a movement of people dissatisfied with the state, capitalism and the oppression of marginalized groups. Of course this is all purely speculation on my end and you should just do what you think feels the best. All I ask is that you think about it.
In any case this concludes my guide. I shall be making another article when the elections are done and the results are in. Whatever the results, it is very clear that we are about to enter some dark times so it is best if we brace for that. However considering I follow anti-doomer rhetoric must I urge you all to not abandon hope and continue on. After all it is always darkest before the dawn.
Sources and notes:
1. https://nos.nl/collectie/13942/artikel/2481977-dit-is-wat-we-nu-weten-over-de-val-van-kabinet-rutte-iv
2. https://nos.nl/collectie/13944/artikel/2482876-verkiezingen-in-aantocht-wie-vertrekt-er-uit-den-haag-en-wie-blijft
3. https://www.parlement.com/id/vkqxg4g3netv/verkiezingen_hoe_werkt_het
4. https://www.parlement.com/id/vm4ncjtybczw/tweede_kamerverkiezingen_2023
5. https://www.vvd.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Verkiezingsprogramma-VVD-2023-2027.pdf
6. https://nos.nl/collectie/13944/artikel/2487038-vvd-lijsttrekker-yesilgoz-sluit-samenwerking-met-pvv-niet-op-voorhand-uit
7. https://d14uo0i7wmc99w.cloudfront.net/CDA%20Verkiezingsprogramma.pdf
8. https://www.christenunie.nl/blog/2023/09/14/Verkiezingsprogramma-ChristenUnie-Geloven-in-een-verbonden-samenleving
9. https://www.christenunie.nl/blog/2022/09/28/Bijdrage-Mirjam-Bikker-aan-het-debat-over-de-transgenderwet
10. https://storage.googleapis.com/groep-pieter-website/NSC_verkiezingsprogramma_2023_01.pdf
11. https://www.parool.nl/nederland/amnesty-international-politie-in-nederland-gaat-te-ver-in-aanpak-demonstranten~b85cb2a5/?referrer=https://www.google.com/
12. https://d66.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/D66_VKP2023_2023-2027.pdf
13. https://www.pvv.nl/images/2023/PVV-Verkiezingsprogramma-2023.pdf
14. https://www.bnnvara.nl/joop/artikelen/pvvers-laten-zich-voor-het-karretje-van-het-kremlin-spannen
15. https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2012/03/21/brinkman-pvv-ontvangt-geld-van-lobbykantoren-in-amerika-a1446630 (Note: Paywalled)
16. https://nos.nl/artikel/2448865-grote-zorgen-in-de-tweede-kamer-over-complottheorieen-baudet
17. https://fvd.nl/FVD_het_programma_van_hoop_optimisme_en_herstel_2023-2027.pdf
18. https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2022/04/12/het-onderzoek-naarbaudet-dat-niet-kwam-a4111001 (Note: paywalled)
19. https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/5410362/fouad-l-verdachte-schietincidenten-rotterdam-drie-doden
20. https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2022/02/20/ja21-wil-de-enige-echte-partij-tegen-woke-worden-a4092101 (Note: Paywalled)
21. https://ja21.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/Concept-verkiezingsprogramma.pdf
22. https://youtu.be/fxKMyNx9YVo
23. https://socialisme.nu/wat-voor-partij-is-bbb/
24. https://ss-usa.s3.amazonaws.com/c/308478465/media/190664fb2bd061e4754125435163337/BBB%20Concept%20Verkiezingsprogramma%20TK%20Verkiezingen%202023.pdf
25. https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/economie/artikel/5397349/belastingen-waterschappen-gaan-volgend-jaar-fors-omhoog
26. https://bvnl.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Verkiezingsprogramma2023.pdf
27. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweede_Kamerverkiezingen_2017
28. https://socialisme.nu/waar-stopt-de-verrechtsing-van-groenlinks/
29. https://groenlinkspvda.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/VKP-DEF-1-11-23.pdf
30. https://cybercatworks.blogspot.com/2021/09/de-sp-wil-geen-linkse-politiek.html
31. https://socialisme.nu/op-welke-punten-wil-de-sp-eigenlijk-nog-wel-links-zijn/
32. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgmvER6CkqI
33. https://assets.partijvoordedieren.nl/assets/algemeen/Verkiezingsprogramma-2023-Tweede-Kamer-Partij-voor-de-Dieren.pdf
34. https://assets.partijvoordedieren.nl/assets/algemeen/Verkiezingsprogramma-2023-Tweede-Kamer-Partij-voor-de-Dieren.pdf
35. https://bij1.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/BIJ1-Concept-Partijprogramma-Tweede-Kamer-2023.pdf
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