The campaign really started: gambling with the country administration as a bet

The public start of an election campaign requires subtle expectation management.

Anyone who loses seats in the virtual intermediate positions needs something to break the negative spiral. That is why VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz once again emphasized that she was wrong in the Douwe Bob issue.

And those who are on a profit must especially radiate that the party has not yet peaked. That is why CDA leader Henri Bontenbal mainly opted for a sober presentation on Saturday.

It was also underlined on Saturday that this campaign has a lot from a game of poker – nervous, unpredictable, bluffy, tactically inscrutable.

PVV leader Geert Wilders remains the most uncertain factor. He fell the cabinet but nevertheless leads the polls. Now that the VVD and the CDA exclude him as a coalition partner, a return of the PVV in a cabinet seems virtually impossible.

But Wilders, Member of Parliament since 1998, has the Haagse Achteromjes. On Friday evening, at the kick -off of his campaign in Venlo, he mainly wanted to convey that his chances of driving through are alive and kicking: he emphasized the possibility of a minority cabinet.

Whether it is very promising is seen. On Saturday at the end of the afternoon, Joost Eerdmans of JA21, also a party in the elevator, showed himself skeptical about a minority coalition: “Is that the answer to the mess?”

The anti-wilders

CDA leader Henri Bontenbal is in many ways the anti-Wilders of this campaign. The wild political culture, which unmistakably has traces of the growing PVV influence in The Hague, is in fact its main target.

Opposite the endless conflicts and non -performance of the past two years, he places a policy of, as he said on Saturday, “peace, cleanliness and regularity.” An attitude with which he has so far a relatively great confidence among voters.

And where Wilders emphasizes the urgency of issues with impatience and radical proposals, the CDA leader is happy to quote the American philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) in interviews. He emphasized the pitfalls of self -overestimation: people, including politicians, must always be calculated that good intentions can also lead to poor results.

Not that long ago he was posthumously a star. In 2008, the Democratic and Republican candidate mentioned the US presidential election, Barack Obama and John McCain, Niebuhr as their favorite thinker.

But that time is quite over. Donald Trump and numerous other world leaders (XI, Putin, Netanyahu) are now constantly showing behavior for which Niebuhr warned. And also in that wild political culture of The Hague, many parties eagerly emphasize their own excellence.

Even after the coalition fell early, fallen coalition partners were rarely inclined to modesty. In its own presentation, the PVV did almost everything exemplary but is, she complains. BBB did not get much for each other on nitrogen, but “delivers” according to its own slogan daily. Even after the outgoing cabinet fell a second time, the remaining hull cabinet presents itself as if it just rule.

And it is this loss of political formality that Bontenbal benefits. After the elections, he is probably an indispensable link in almost every coalition, so that he can take the position that the CDA is the best best.

He does not bend to the left and not to the right. And he emphasizes the importance of decency and responsible behavior.

It places the country on a crossroad in this campaign. Does the will for rigorous change, to more political conflict and a new attack on the order, or “craves the country,” as Bontenbal said, “to normal politicians”?

VVD in the nests

This plays a role in the fact that the VVD has worked itself in the nests. Yesilgöz, who reopened the door to collaboration with Wilders in 2023, noticed on Saturday that she excludes Wilders now that he has outdoors the Cabinet Schoof. At the same time, she expressed a preference for a center -right cabinet.

According to her, a “stable cabinet” with GroenLinks-PvdA is impossible. Nevertheless, her predecessor Mark Rutte regularly (coalition) agreed with both PvdA and GroenLinks.

But in its interpretation, since Frits Bolkestein, VVD leader in 1990-1999, the country, the country, wants the center-right policy, and this is hindered by left-wing political forces.

The fact is that its current positioning suggests that a center -right cabinet without the PVV is possible. But according to the virtual intermediate positions, there is not yet.

Since 1982, the year that restorative forces with the Lubbers cabinet (CDA-VVD) ended the progressive dominance in The Hague, the VVD ruled 35 of the 43 years. The CDA 30 years. The two thus became administrative backbone of the country.

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The position that the VVD has been choosing under Yesilgöz since 2023 is at odds with that tradition. And after Saturday, the fear is justified that the VVD will continue to undermine the manageability of the country even after the next elections.

Moreover, it is contrary to other statements by Yesilgöz. For example, she said on Saturday: “No matter how incomprehensible it is for us VVD people that parties just run away from their responsibility – we are there, and we will make it happen.”

Thus, the question will also arise in the VVD what the plan is actually here. It has a lot that the party chooses the opposition more or less in advance. It is not running away, but it has something of it.

In a wild political culture, profit and loss are stunningly close together.

Young men and lobbyists at JA21

At Ja21werden, some last adjustments to the election program were discussed on Saturday afternoon. Two years ago, the party saw two of her MPs switch to BBB just before the elections, and only achieved one seat.

Now the polls are promising, and Saturday were strikingly many young men at the election congress.

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Success, also from lobbyists. Because when discussing the program, Jan Cees Vogelaar, previously, also reported chamber candidate for the party. A man who has been struggling for years as a representative of the agricultural sector and likes to get angry about the nitrogen policy.

In 2020, for example, he was a driving force behind a study that had to prove that the agrosector was attributed too large in the nitrogen crisis in an advisory report by Johan Remkes. Calculations presented in a ridge -full Nieuwspoort showed this, Vogelaar spoke triumphantly about it, but afterwards the calculations he cheered were incorrect.

And on Saturday he suggested changing the text of the JA21 election program in favor of the agrosector. In the concept there was a mandatory (‘guaranteed’) nitrogen reduction as an objective, and Vogelaar was happy to see this deleted.

The party agreed with more than 97 percent of the votes. If you win you have friends.

At NSC, this kind of advocacy also flattened the door two years ago. Last Saturday in Apeldoorn, a small picking members debated about the election program. Involved people who civilly discussed the issue of the mortgage interest deduction. Few seats in sight, yet the civilian mother to exchange arguments for an optimal election program.

Real involvement. And not without meaning – because in this political culture, losers of today are the winners of tomorrow.

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