Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his coalition can pack if it is up to the people of Brabant. Research by Omroep Brabant shows that the coalition parties would be halved if elections were held now for the House of Representatives. The big winner is the BBB from Caroline van de Plas. That party becomes 5 times as big.
Research agency Newcom investigated whether people from Brabant would vote differently than in last year’s parliamentary elections. It is striking that VVD, CDA and D66 all lose heavily. Those parties are cut in half one by one.
- VVD: from 17 to 9 percent.
- D66: from 11 to 6 percent.
- CDA: from 8 to 4 percent.
- ChristenUnie: remains at 1 percent.
The explanation of the significant loss varies from party to party. People from Brabant who turn their backs on the CDA do so mainly because they no longer find the party reliable and honest. Many voters believe that the party has let the farmers down.
They indicate that they seek refuge with the BBB of Caroline van der Plas. According to them, that party has a better program and stands up for the interests of the farmers and the common man. Former CDA voters also have a lot of confidence in party leader Van der Plas.
This is immediately apparent in the research. The BBB shoots up and is 5 times as large in Brabant: from 2 to 10 percent. PVV also benefits a little and goes from 9 to 10 percent. Both parties would thus become the largest.
Pieter Omtzigt is also doing well. Last year he was still a member of parliament for the CDA, now he is an independent member of parliament. If he participates in the elections with his own list, he will receive 4 percent of the vote from the people of Brabant. From former CDA voters, but also from people who voted for the VVD last time.
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Voters who say they no longer vote for the VVD give a different explanation than the CDA dropouts. Nitrogen policy plays a much smaller role here.
Many voters drop out of the VVD:
- because of the ‘general misery’ in the country,
- because they no longer find Rutte reliable
- and because the party is ‘advancing to the left’.
A frequently heard complaint: the VVD pays too much attention to coalition partner D66.
Nitrogen Policy
The cabinet gets a lot of trouble when it comes to nitrogen policy. Two thirds of the respondents gave the government an unsatisfactory score. Almost half of the voters disagree with the government sticking to 2030 as a deadline that nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands must be reduced by 50 percent.
The respondents also do not think it is a good idea to halve the livestock. At least half of the voters don’t like that. That is striking, because just before the elections in 2021, it was still 33 percent. The resistance against the shrinkage of the livestock is therefore growing.
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The nitrogen crisis has a major influence on their voting behavior for the former CDA voters and the new BBB voters. Yet there are subjects that voters are even more concerned about, such as the purchasing power crisis, the housing crisis and the asylum crisis.
It is striking that the VVD voters in particular are disappointed about this. In their view, for example, the party does not stand up enough for people with middle incomes, too little is done about the rapidly rising inflation and there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the current asylum policy. The crisis in the housing market contributes to that feeling.
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