After four hours of talking about the farming issue, Johan Remkes knew enough. The Netherlands is in a “severe crisis of confidence”. Prime Minister Rutte has been the political personification of that crisis since the last elections. He and the VVD think they can turn the tide.
There is no question that they have a responsibility. No party has ruled as long since the end of the Cold War as the VVD. And party leader Rutte is this Thursday with 4,320 days not only the longest serving prime minister in history – ahead of Ruud Lubbers (4,310), Willem Drees (3,790), Johan Rudolf Thorbecke (3,237), Jan Peter Balkenende (3,007), Wim Kok (2,892). , Charles Ruijs de Beerenbrouck (2.510) and Hendrik Colijn (2.369) – but also not tired of the days. As long as he has “dripping mouth” for “problem solving” for the Council of Ministers, he would like to continue, said Rutte just before the summer recess.
Is there any historical empirical evidence for this energetic optimism? No. Democratic Europe is teeming with heads of government who ended sadly because they thought for too long that they had the situation under control. Chancellor Helmut Kohl was a political demigod after he managed German reunification in 1989. Nine years later, Kohl (5,871 days chancellor) had to say a shocking farewell. Charles de Gaulle had saved deteriorating colonial France from civil war in the late 1950s. In 1969, President De Gaulle was voted out after 3,764 days.
In the Netherlands, Ruud Lubbers is the prime example. Until the last day in 1994, Lubbers thought he could arrange his inheritance in the CDA, but he pulled the party along in his own tragic retreat.
Twelve years of power often does not end well for the party in power itself. The exception is Tory leader Margaret Thatcher, who handed over her position in an orderly fashion in 1990 after 4,226 days. However, the acclaimed Angela Merkel (5,891 days) left her CDU leaderless in 2021.
The latter is now also a threat in the VVD. Since Rutte became party leader in 2006, he has let all potential successors die. Party chairman Klaas Dijkhoff (2017-2021) chose the safe path, albeit that he dropped out not only because he had no patience, but also because he was fed up with the political culture. Ministers Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (2012-2017) and Edith Schippers (2010-2017) also did not want to wait. Who’s in the wings now? Group chairman Sophie Hermans? She still has so little calluses on her soul that she feels let Geert Wilders bully.
No, around Rutte no more grass grows after 4,320 days.
The fact that, according to former campaign strategist Mark Thiessen, the VVD “doesn’t know who it is anymore”, just like the PvdA in the 1980s and the CDA in the 1990s, is in itself up to that point. The fact that the parliamentary-democratic alternatives also offer no solace makes the clear-cutting at the VVD frightening. The CDA has been languishing steadily since the PVV adventure of short-lived party leader Maxime Verhagen (2010-2012), and is no longer able to channel the peasant uprising. On the left, PvdA and GroenLinks pretend that they are aiming for a merger. But when push comes to shove, despite the fact that war is raging in Europe, GroenLinks prefers to be guided by its own good intentions rather than geopolitical considerations when assessing a trade agreement with Canada.
The intellectual and administrative crisis at the power party of today is therefore not an exclusive VVD problem. The double crisis surrounding record Prime Minister Rutte affects the system. A consolation is at most that the Netherlands has no revolutionary tradition – disregarding the German occupation – and therefore sinks into its own mud rather than blows itself up.
Hubert Smeets is a journalist and historian. He writes a column here every other week.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of 11 August 2022