Parties must seek the cause of low turnout within themselves

Self-reflection is not the strongest point of political parties, as it turned out after the municipal elections. The fact that half of the voters did not vote and a large part of the other half opted for local parties, should be reason for the national parties to investigate themselves. Instead, they look for causes outside their own party.

The low turnout would be due to distrust in politics, the Allowance scandal, Rutte’s lies, quarrels in the House. Corona. Or the war in Ukraine. There is bound to be a grain of truth in each of those statements, but the main reason for the low turnout remains unmentioned. Out research by Ipsos turns out that many voters simply don’t know which party they should vote for. The parties apparently no longer succeed in making clear what their added value is.

This loss of attraction is problematic: municipal councils have traditionally been a breeding ground for new political and administrative talent. And if the political landscape fragments and parties become too small, this can hinder political decisiveness. It makes it difficult to form stable coalitions that can carry out plans.

Citizens once derived their (ideological) identity in part from the party they voted for. The times of broad popular parties are long gone. The voter is capricious and looks at parties as if they were sprinkles: one week you feel like pure, and then it is time for milk flakes again.

It may feel like a relief for parties to blame crazy individualism instead of their own failures, but that doesn’t get any votes. Handing out a flyer, sticker, rose, pen or apple on the street will not solve the problem either. The voter may have gotten a little lazy, but he doesn’t want to be treated like a toddler.

The SP, which has not had any electoral success for years, announced last week that it wants to become more opposed to GroenLinks and PvdA. She already did that during the last campaign, in which she strongly opposed the ‘too positive’ view of labor migration by the other two parties. In the European elections in 2019, the SP even acted ‘negative campaigning‘, with a commercial in which PvdA party leader Frans Timmermans was mocked. With the opposite effect: the PvdA became the big winner, the SP lost its European seats.

FVD goes much further in its aversion to other parties. Party leader Thierry Baudet wants to set up his own ‘pillar’, complete with its own schools and institutes. That strategy failed to deliver the big wins he had promised his supporters in the elections. It only pushes the party further into isolation.

With a little imagination you can come up with more positive ways of campaigning, with more substance. Parties could start by providing clear information about their candidates. The Internet is now mainly used as a medium to bombard voters with advertisements. There are smarter ways to use that platform. Yes, there are electoral indicators, but they say nothing about individual candidates. And yes, there were public websites with information about candidates, but their promises were often so meaningless (‘bringing people together’) that they previously discouraged voting.

If the voter is indeed a lazy, but also a critical consumer, then capitalize on that. Perhaps the club feeling will return to parties.