No one is really speaking out about a clear preferred coalition in this campaign. VVD party leader Dilan Yesilgöz would rather not govern with GroenLinks-PvdA, while their leader Frans Timmermans says he would rather not govern with the VVD. Pieter Omtzigt of New Social Contract (NSC) sees something in a minority cabinet. But with which parties exactly do they want to govern after the November 22 elections? Most party leaders prefer to keep their options open for cabinet formation. Wouldn’t voters benefit from more clarity about coalition formation during the campaign?
It would be good if party leaders gave some direction in advance about what their ideal coalition is, says Tom van der Meer, professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. “Voters would like to know what kind of cabinet they can expect if they vote for a particular party. They now hardly know where they stand.” Van der Meer makes the comparison with an order in a restaurant. “Voters will not be shown a menu during the campaign, but will only be allowed to choose from a long list of ingredients. They just have to wait and see what kind of dish the chef makes in the kitchen.”
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In this campaign too, the party leaders only want to speak out about the ingredients of a possible coalition – the points from their own election manifesto. VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz would rather not join GroenLinks-PvdA, she said in NRC. Then “the risk of watery compromises becomes great”, for example around migration. Earlier in the campaign, Yesilgöz emphatically kept the door open for a new collaboration with the PVV, but on Friday in the Radio-1 debate he distanced himself from PVV leader Geert Wilders, who “only shouts out online liners.” The question is whether a right-wing cabinet of the combination VVD-NSC-BBB-PVV is realistic, although it has more than eighty seats in the polls. Omtzigt is also still not keen on a majority cabinet with the PVV. Omtzigt repeated this week on NOS op 3 that he cannot be in one cabinet with a party that “makes a distinction on the basis of faith”. BBB leader Caroline van der Plas suggested in it Reformatorisch Dagblad a right-wing coalition of VVD, NSC, BBB and the SGP, but numerically this combination does not have a majority.
Omtzigt and Timmermans
Timmermans, in turn, does not see much in cooperation with the VVD. His only problem is that GroenLinks-PvdA has no numerical prospect of a majority for a left-wing cabinet, even if he becomes the largest. That is why Timmermans specifically looks at NSC van Omtzigt. “I see a lot of similarities, and not a single point on which I think: we cannot find a compromise on that.”
Omtzigt kept a little more distance from Timmermans in Arnhem: he envisions cooperation on social security and good governance, but sees more opportunities for NSC with the VVD on themes such as nitrogen, nuclear energy and migration.
All these statements were made on the assumption that the largest party will provide the prime minister and will look for a majority cabinet. Political scientist Van der Meer believes that this is not democratically pure and administratively unwise. According to him, it leads to fairly interchangeable coalitions without too many policy adjustments. Over the last thirteen years, the Netherlands has always had a middle cabinet with the same (VVD) Prime Minister. If voters had more control over what kind of government there would be before the elections, different coalitions would really be possible. Now voters who really want change are fleeing to the flanks or to new parties such as BBB or NSC this year. Van der Meer: “Our system does encourage fragmentation, but that does not necessarily stand in the way of pre-electoral coalitions.”
In other countries with similar electoral systems, these types of ‘ballot box agreements’ are not unusual. A shining example for Van der Meer is Denmark. There, political parties that want to govern together form clear blocs during election campaigns. Traditionally there is a left block (red) and a right block (blue) of up to five and seven parties. During the last elections at the end of last year, social democratic leader Mette Frederiksen announced in advance that she would strive for a government with support from parties outside her red camp. Frederiksen ultimately formed her (second) cabinet with two liberal parties.
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In the Netherlands, bloc formation is also possible in theory, but the standard ‘left’ and ‘right’ blocs have become so small that forming a majority cabinet is not self-evident. An alternative is a minority cabinet, expressly advised by informant Johan Remkes during the long formation of 2021 to break the impasse between the parties.
NSC leader Pieter Omtzigt seems to prefer a minority cabinet over a majority coalition. He said this week NOS at 3 that a minority cabinet would help move away from “that very rigid coalition policy” that he has been campaigning against for years. With a minority cabinet, the debate in Parliament will become “more open,” Omtzigt thinks. Frans Timmermans said in the same broadcast that he sees risks with a minority cabinet. “If you have to constantly look for changing coalitions, you cannot act decisively.”
With NSC as the potentially largest party, a minority cabinet seems a more likely option than with previous cabinet formations. Ultimately, everything depends on how the voter votes on November 22. Are numerically stable right-wing or left-wing majority cabinets possible, or are VVD, NSC and GroenLinks-PvdA condemned to each other for a majority? In the latter case, the protagonist must choose: do they go for numerical stability, or a minority cabinet that can make sharper choices about right or left.