Suddenly everyone is claiming the subject of social security, even the VVD. Much to the frustration of the SP, which presented its draft election program on Friday. For years the socialists have been trying to profile themselves on this subject, and for years the voters have been running away from them.
Party leader Lilian Marijnissen hopes to win her first seat in this election. Since taking office at the end of 2017, she has only lost: six elections in a row. This year the competition is even fiercer. Both the BoerBurgerBeweging and Pieter Omtzigt’s New Social Contract (NSC) are popular among former SP voters.
With a list of plans that hardly differs from the previous election program from 2021, the SP now hopes to convince more voters of its anti-capitalist story. In order to reduce the dichotomy between rich and poor, society must be radically overhauled, the party believes. The SP not only wants to increase the minimum wage and benefits, but also make public transport and internet access free, intervene in the prices of supermarket products, and oblige companies to share their profits with employees.
Administrative renewal, suddenly much discussed by Omtzigt, has also been advocated for years by the SP. The socialists want to put ordinary citizens in charge just about everywhere: with far-reaching right of consent for employees in companies and for tenants in housing associations. And with a binding corrective referendum to reverse political decisions. The king wants to replace the SP with an elected head of state.
But while most parties, including the NSC, preach financial frugality and warn that there will be little budget for expensive political decisions in the coming years, the SP shows no such trepidation. The party wants to significantly expand two of the government’s largest cost items, healthcare and state pension. People must again receive an AOW benefit from the age of 65, which will also become more generous. Closed hospital departments must reopen. And the elderly do not have to continue to live at home, but can go to a small-scale ‘Care Neighborhood Home’.
The SP thinks it can pay for this without ordinary citizens noticing. Especially the largest and most polluting companies bear the costs, and millionaires. A financial section with accountability is missing. The SP also does not have its election program calculated by the Central Planning Bureau, which Marijnissen calls a “neoliberal institution” in her book published last year.
Competitor Timmermans
Another major threat to the SP is the joint list of GroenLinks and PvdA. Their party leader Frans Timmermans profiles himself as the most promising left-wing prime ministerial candidate, and with that he can attract many strategic votes. In 2021, during the previous parliamentary elections, many previous SP voters turned out to be sensitive to this. Then a large group switched to D66 leader Sigrid Kaag, according to a voter survey.
Marijnissen is increasingly opposed to GroenLinks and PvdA. In 2020 she took another stage with GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver and Lodewijk Asscher, then PvdA leader, with a joint political story. Now she mainly emphasizes the differences.
For example, she strongly opposes climate measures such as road pricing and a flight or meat tax. The SP calls climate policy important, but thinks that ordinary citizens should hardly notice it. “We distance ourselves from more liberal, individualistic climate measures,” says Marijnissen in an explanation NRC. She especially wants to tackle the polluting industry.
Everything is class struggle
And so every issue at the SP revolves around class struggle, including nitrogen. “The large-scale bio-industry, which is oriented towards exports,” must come to an end, the program says. But this transition should not be the responsibility of farmers, but of their financiers, ‘who have made money from economies of scale’.
Remarkably enough, the SP, in contrast to 2021, no longer mentions a reduction in livestock numbers. It seems to be a reaction to BBB’s success, but according to Marijnissen it is mainly a reaction to government policy, which offers farmers too little ‘perspective’. The SP is still in favor of fewer cattle, she says. “But farmers have been hounded for years with neoliberal ideas about scaling up. You cannot just change that without perspective and the means to do so.”
Marijnissen says this campaign hopes for a “battle of ideas”, in which the SP can show which other economic model it advocates. In the polls, her party, which has 9 seats in the House of Representatives, is losing 1 to 3 seats.