There was a conflict, it was just a different one. The resounding, historic victory of the BoerBurgerBeweging in the provincial elections has completely turned relations in The Hague upside down.
While the VVD sold the elections as a battle of ideas with the center-left parties GroenLinks and PvdA, the real conflict turned out to lie elsewhere. This was the duel between the two moods of the Netherlands.
The mood of mostly contentment, of belief in the power of compromise and the political center, had a difficult evening. Parties that radiated this mood, coalition parties and loyal opposition parties, almost all lost. According to forecasts, the coalition of the Rutte IV cabinet (VVD, D66, CDA and ChristenUnie) could only count on 24 of the 75 seats in the Senate. The members of the Provincial Council elect the composition of the Senate in May. Two loyal opposition parties, GroenLinks and PvdA, survived. Both parties have often helped the coalition to a majority in the Senate, which made Rutte’s ‘left cloud’ argument implausible.
Mood of discontent
The other mood is that of dissatisfaction, the chagrin about the established order, of the feeling that everything has to change. BBB has become the interpreter of that dissatisfaction. The young party of Caroline van der Plas achieved a victory that is reminiscent of a few political breakthroughs: the LPF in 2002 and FVD in 2019.
BBB has been on the rise since 2021, when the party ended up with one seat in the House of Representatives. The cabinet must work on a nitrogen law, climate policy and devise the future of agriculture. It is precisely on these subjects that BBB has almost a monopoly on the populist playing field, as PVV leader Geert Wilders rightly pointed out on Wednesday evening.
Crucial to BBB’s advance was its ability to link the interests of the agricultural sector to a broader dissatisfaction with the national administrative culture. BBB scored not only in rural areas, but also in large and medium-sized cities.
The dissatisfaction manifests itself in low confidence in politics. Last year, research by I&O Research, commissioned by NRC, which is almost 80 percent dissatisfied with the cabinet. Prime Minister Rutte can no longer escape the malaise: he received a 4.5 as a report mark.
effective campaign
BBB effectively campaigned against the government’s nitrogen plans. The cabinet is working on a law that should ensure that nitrogen emissions are reduced significantly by 2030, with so-called ‘must bring’, and that there are ‘calibration moments’ in 2025 and 2028. This means, among other things, that major polluters will have to close, either forcedly or voluntarily. The unrest caused by these plans, resulting in massive farmers’ protests, has given BBB electoral oxygen.
Right-wing and radical right-wing populism has become a full-fledged political movement. In 2002 the LPF was the only party on that flank, now BBB, PVV, JA21 and FVD are there. In the Senate, the current – no matter how different the parties are – is large with, according to the forecast, 24 of the 75 seats. The elections are therefore in line with the analysis by political scientists that there are no longer two dominant political currents, the centre-left and centre-right, but three. A fully-fledged political column has emerged to the right of the VVD, which grows somewhat larger with each election. Incidentally, Caroline van der Plas calls her party right-wing when it comes to asylum and migration, and left-wing when it comes to socio-economic issues.
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BBB has become an almost impossible to ignore factor in college formation in most provinces. This will mean that provincial authorities will act even more fiercely against the government’s nitrogen plans, which they must elaborate. The provincial cooperation with parties such as VVD and CDA is immediately a test for the national political dynamics. At the provincial level, the distance between VVD, CDA and BBB appears to be less. Several leaders of both government parties have already said that they do not want to implement the nitrogen plans, or not in this form. That is bad news for Rutte IV: even their own parties do not want to cooperate in this complex file. At the same time, it also offers an opportunity. The highly radicalized FVD was virtually excluded as a coalition partner in 2019: they only ended up in colleges in Limburg and North Brabant. It is different at BBB. Cooperation is not excluded in advance.
Opportunities for Ruth
That offers opportunities in The Hague. The vacant seats of FVD and divisions in the Senate (from twelve to two, according to the prognosis) offer Rutte room to maneuver. For years he could do little with the right, and did a lot of business with the centre-left. In return, GroenLinks and PvdA could make demands.
Now Rutte can look for two majorities, on many subjects. The left route is still possible. And if that fails, he can do business with BBB. Or he can play both sides against each other. The mere threat of a different majority reduces the negotiating space for the opposition. In that sense, the election result is not only bad for Rutte.
It just seems impossible that the cabinet will throw the nitrogen plans overboard. It was preceded by a long process, with binding court decisions, a mediation by Johan Remkes, and great political pain. The file must not come to a standstill for Rutte IV, because no homes can be built without lower nitrogen emissions.
And therein lies the big problem for the coalition. Giving in to BBB is out of the question for D66, and eyeing right-wing parties for majorities is already viewed with concern. VVD and certainly also CDA, which saw a large part of the voters run away to BBB, seem much more willing to give in. But how far does that admit? Minister Christianne van der Wal (Stikstof, VVD) said on Wednesday evening that the existing plans will simply be implemented. But the ‘no’ from a large part of the electorate is a guarantee for months of great political unrest.
Read also: What matters to the national parties after this result