Rutte Looks for Exit from Dutch Politics | 66 comments (66 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Don"t Tell Dutch Electorate Is a Mess (none / 0)

Opinion: The hypocrites from The Hague | August 2020 |
No question, the Dutch are my favourite among the European neighbours.
But ever since the poison of right-wing extremist nationalism started penetrating deeper and deeper into Dutch politics, this beautiful image has increasingly disappeared behind ugly patches of ignorance and narrow-mindedness. And this is happening to the detriment of all of Europe.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte demonstrated this during the negotiations on the EU budget and the Coronavirus relief package. There, he rallied as the leader of the "frugal" camp which opposed the supposed threat of wasting taxpayers' money on economically weaker EU states. With this dictum, Rutte and his allies pushed through extensive cuts and turned more than €100 billion of planned grants into mere loans. This will not help the particularly hard-hit Italians and Spaniards because their state coffers are already heavily in debt.

Amnesia and Gaza Genocide

by Oui (Oui) on Sat Jul 8th, 2023 at 10:19:11 AM EST

Re: Don"t Tell Dutch Electorate Is a Mess (none / 0)

Rutte IV took nearly a year in formation ... it was a total failure -- DOD.

We shouldn't be surprised by the chaos in the Netherlands | Open Democracy - March 2021 |
Conspiracy-fuelled riots sizzle on the streets of Amsterdam and Rotterdam and the Dutch cabinet has collapsed in a racist child benefit scandal. We are the last country in Europe to start vaccinating and have the second highest wealth inequality in the rich world. Our print media is owned by just two corporations and we are performing worse on climate change than our European neighbours. My adopted home likes to present itself as the prefect of Europe. But in reality, the Netherlands is a mess.
Yet polls say that the shambolic ruling party, the Liberal Party (VVD), is set to gain seats in the national election on 17 March. Its leader, prime minister Mark Rutte will likely lead his fourth consecutive cabinet and his nearest rival, Geert Wilders, who wants to ban the Koran and deport Muslims, is also set to gain seats.
I first moved to Amsterdam from the UK in 2004, and have lived here on and off with my Dutch partner ever since. I've often wondered "wtf is going on in this country?"
Netherlands in Revolt
In January, violent riots broke out across the country. Instigated by fascists, conspiracy theorists and football hooligans, the early protests also included many people - including a friend of ours - who weren't necessarily on the ultra Right, but who strongly objected to the first night-time curfew - an anti-COVID measure - since the Nazi occupation of the Second World War.
Eerily, though the riots broke out only weeks ago, it already feels like they never happened. For Sylvana Simons, a former MTV presenter who is now the leader of the upstart anti-racist party, Bij1, which hopes to gain its first seats next week, this is a peculiar trait of the Netherlands. "What is happening is what always happens in this country, we don't talk about it. If we don't talk about it, it does not exist," says Simons.
This has led to crisis after crisis rumbling on unresolved for years. Intensive farming is producing dangerous nitrogen levels. Gas drilling by Shell and Exxon Mobil is triggering hundreds of earthquakes, wrecking homes in Groningen. Thousands of people have been bankrupted by false allegations of benefit fraud. But we'll come to that.
Fear, hope and discontent
"There are three things that motivate voters," says political consultant Sybren Kooistra, "fear, hope and discontent. And the extreme-Right parties are the only ones mobilising discontent".
There's good reason for discontent. Since the 1980s, healthcare has been privatised, housing and labour markets have been deregulated. The public sector has been squashed. And this accelerated after the 2008 financial crisis. Between 2011 and 2016, Rutte-led cabinets implemented austerity measures worth €47.4bn, including big cuts to public sector pay, social security and care - even though government debt was low relative to its GDP.
As a result, half the population can't find an affordable home, and homelessness doubled between 2009 and 2019 to 40,000. A million people live below the poverty line. More than 30% of workers are in precarious jobs, the third highest proportion in Europe after Poland and Spain. There are teacher shortages and public transport is rusting. More than half of intensive care beds have gone in the past ten years.