For months, VVD members had been knocking on doors, according to the campaign team, about 100,000 doors in the Netherlands had been knocked on. But did it help much? VVD leader Mark Rutte saw that his party had “some pluses”, and in some municipalities “remained the same” or “declined slightly”. But what, according to him, was the most important outcome: “The VVD remains the largest national party.”
In the near future, the VVD will examine very precisely the effect of the canvas actions, and probably also whether it was such a wise decision from an electoral point of view to let Rutte no longer participate in the election campaign after the war in Ukraine. The party thought it was “not appropriate” if Rutte would still walk around with flyers. In departments it was cautiously hoped for a rally ’round the flag-effect: if he were the statesman in times of crisis, it could turn out to be favorable for the VVD during the elections. That doesn’t seem to have happened.
Attention to other things
On the results evening in The Hague, in the cafe of Brouwerij De Prael, Rutte called himself “little visible” in these elections because he was so busy with the Ukraine crisis. “Just like Sigrid Kaag and Wopke Hoekstra.” And he thought it was also because of the war that voter turnout was low: “People’s attention is now on other things.”
At least his. He had not wanted to wait for the results of the municipal elections in Arnhem, as had been intended. If a crisis meeting was suddenly necessary in The Hague, he wanted to be nearby. And so the party leaders had come to the cafe that the VVD department in The Hague had already hired – there was still plenty of room there.
The VVD’s campaign strategy had been extensively tested before the elections, just as the party does with almost everything: which phrases on the door worked best? All departments were told how best to stand, not too close to the people they came to talk to, and also how long they should stay: three to five minutes. And that they had come to listen, not to deliver the election manifesto.
Read alsothis report from the Gooie VVD village Laren
‘Stable party’
In 2006, Rutte himself had been the campaign manager in the municipal elections that had led to the resignation of Jozias van Aartsen as party leader in the House of Representatives. Van Aartsen had wanted to get 14 percent of the vote, but that just didn’t work out. However professional and sophisticated the VVD campaigns had become after that, the municipal elections had sometimes gone better than in 2006, but by no means always. “We have been a stable party for about forty years,” Rutte said after all the interviews for TV on Wednesday night. “But all the other parties went down past us in the elevator.”
And then you remain, however small perhaps, as “the largest national party”.
Rita Verdonk is now returning to the municipal politics of The Hague. In 2006, after Van Aartsen’s departure, she was Rutte’s opponent in the party leader election, which Rutte just won. Verdonk is now number two on Richard de Mos’s list of Hart for The Hague. Rutte didn’t feel like saying anything about that. “Nice is not it? And furthermore, it is up to the VVD in The Hague.”