Scout Ronald Plasterk will start new talks with the leaders of the PVV, BBB, VVD and NSC on Monday. A miracle will have to happen for the exploration to succeed.
Plasterk announced before he started his job that a coalition of those four parties could easily be arranged. But he wrote that in a column in the Telegraaf. He must now also have realized that it is not that simple in reality.
The order of Monday’s conversations was probably chosen for a reason. Plasterk first talks to the leaders who would prefer to see a radical right-wing coalition: Geert Wilders and Caroline van der Plas. This is followed by the two leaders who are least likely to serve in a Wilders cabinet; Dilan Yesilgöz and Pieter Omtzigt.
The VVD is having a hard time with this internally. Most of his supporters and voters want a right-wing government as quickly as possible so that they can finally do something about limiting migration, which was after all the reason for the cabinet break. But an asylum stop is not simply arranged.
Yesilgöz has probably taken a strategically smart position by only wanting to tolerate a Wilders cabinet from the House of Representatives. Omtzigt undoubtedly also intended to opt for such a tolerance structure. He in turn came up with a long list of conditions that Wilders must accept in order to start negotiating, at the top of which is that Wilders must respect human rights.
New Social Contract was established more or less because human rights were violated under the Rutte cabinet in Groningen and during the benefits affair. It is unbelievable to govern under a prime minister who wants to push aside human rights for part of the population.
The pressure on Yesilgöz to join a cabinet with the PVV and the BBB will increase further this week. The party placed full-page advertisements in a number of national newspapers this weekend and held a members meeting in Utrecht last week. She seems to be sticking to her chosen line.
Wilders will have to make a lot of effort to get the VVD and NSC on board and will have to promise that he and his group will behave in an exemplary manner in the coming years. That chance doesn’t seem very likely, looking at his behavior over the last week. But the miracles are not over yet.