Wilders’ strategy is clear. Using visual language from the interbellum, he will have one enemy in sight in the coming months: Timmermans. Where his PVV stands up for the young blonde -eyed woman, according to a poster, there is the PvdA for wrinkled brown moeke with a headscarf. “The choice is for you,” is the text in an election poster That the leader sent around on Monday. Whether he builds on the tradition of fascist or Stalinist advertising technology is still the subject of further research.
This message cannot be misunderstood. According to Wilders, Yesilgöz has become an insignificant factor. Timmermans is now his beloved enemy. The PVV member wants to shape the campaign with his own contemporary variant of the slogan ‘Mussert or Moscow’ from 1937.
Timmermans can play in the card in this roles. Now that the Party for the Animals has been torn apart after the ‘Anti-Mens Pompartij’ Peace for Animals For themselves, it has started because she does not want to offer weapons aid to the besieged Ukraine, GroenLinks/PvdA can stand up as the only left -wing party that can cut the PVV the pass.
The second that this polarization gets more room is Bontenbal. The more he can present himself as the reasonableness itself, the more chance he has to become prime minister after October 29. If the election campaign develops as a three-struggle, Bontenbal can become the successor of Jan Peter Balkenende, who in 2002, thanks to a non-attack pact with Fortuyn and face to face with the grim PvdA party leader Melkert, became the last CDA prime minister.
According to research agency IPSOS I&O, Bontenbal with a large 6.5 is most popular among the well -known politicians. In terms of fame, however, he still has a deficit to fall into Wilders, Timmermans, Yesilgöz and even Baudet or Jetten.
Bontenbal will be tested more and more emphatically. Part of the test moments will be programmatic in nature. Foreign policy normally does not play a prominent role in Dutch elections. The controversy about the cruise missiles also barely had an effect in the early 1980s. Nine months after a demonstration of 400,000 people in 1981 – the biggest demonstration ever at the time – the opponents won only three seats. This year Gaza and to a lesser extent Russia are a factor in the campaign. Support for Ukraine will not be a problem. But the Israeli violence in Gaza is of a different order. In the Netherlands, a ‘paradigm change’ is taking place towards Israel, just like in 1972 after the American ‘Christmas bombing’ on Vietnam, as Sjoerd de Jong wrote. It will require the agility of Bontenbal to determine a credible position.
A few domestic dilemmas can turn out even more perilous. With the advice Choose the future a group of top officials put the knife on the table. Their study group budget space argues not only cuts on care and social security, but also a thorough reform of the tax system and a further taxization of the AOW.
The CDA, which has its election program calculated by the Central Planning Bureau, cannot do or bleed its nose. Political conflicts about wealth and inheritance tax are therefore lurking. Intervening in the AOW can revive old traumas. In 1994, Bontenbals for predecessor Elco Brinkman lost the elections because his party the AOW wanted to ‘freeze’.
The choices that Bontenbal has to make now are more radical. At least, if these become campaign themes. His Wilders, Timmermans and Yesilgöz afraid of having their kidneys taste, then Bontenbal can thrive in the shelter: up to the Catshuis.
Hubert Smeets is a journalist and historian. He writes a column every other week at this place.