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Elections are still on the way. Final date will be decided today. Tentative date: September 12.

Principally, it would've been possible for Rutte to start looking for a new working coalition. But giving the lengthy mess it took in 2010 to form a working coalition and the resounding failure to cooperate with Wilders, are some  reasons to hand that decision to the people.

Left unsaid in the diary that over the past 1.5 years several political 'coalitions of the willing' had emerged that kept the government going. For European affairs, Rutte's cabinet could never rely on Wilders, but still found support in opposition parties, particularly Labour often plugged the gap. For the extension of, say, military missions in Afghanistan, the cabinet relied on the same political alliance that now hammered out the new austerity plans.

The bigger left parties - SP and Labour - have already announced they don't see the need for jumping through the austerity hoops in times of economic recession. I'd guess this will become part of their political campaigning. In this regard, they will be joined by the biting anti-EU rhetoric of Wilders.

The larger left-orientated parties - SP, Labour, Greens - have not formed a majority for decades, and this still applies today. Also note that the Greens, moving more and more to the economic right, have signed up for austerity measures.  

by Nomad (Bjinse) on Fri Apr 27th, 2012 at 04:36:47 AM EST
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