Netherlands/Elections: Start Your Engines!

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 THE HAGUE 002308 SIPDIS SENSITIVE, SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PGOV NL SUBJECT: Netherlands/Elections: Start Your Engines! THE HAGUE 00002308 001.2 OF 003 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Dutch voters go to the polls November 22 to elect the 150 member Second Chamber of Parliament ("Tweede Kamer") and, indirectly, to choose the next Dutch government. Although formal campaigning does not begin until November 1, the race is already shaping up as a mano-a- mano fight between current Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende of the Christian Democrats (CDA) and Wouter Bos, the charismatic leader of the center-left opposition Social Democrats(PvdA). If the current center-right coalition of the CDA and Liberal (VVD) parties together gain more than 75 seats, they will almost certainly choose to continue governing as a single bloc; this outcome is attainable but unlikely given current poll figures. PvdA and CDA are virtually guaranteed to hold a majority of seats between them, but neither party leader is eager to serve under the other, making a PvdA-CDA coalition difficult to achieve. The most likely outcome is for either PvdA or CDA to emerge as the largest party in Parliament and then spend the next several months trying to cobble together a coalition with smaller parties. While the campaign is largely dominated by domestic socio-economic issues, foreign policy issues have so far played virtually no significant role. End summary. ELECTIONS 2006: THE RACE IS ON! -------------- ¶2. (U) Although the "formal" campaign season for the November 22 Dutch national elections does not begin until after Parliament recesses on November 1, in practice all parties are already aggressively campaigning across the country. By the end of September, all major Dutch political parties had held election congresses, finalized election platforms and presented comprehensive lists of candidates. At stake are 150 seats of the Second Chamber of Parliament (the "Tweede Kamer"),the more important of the two Chambers, and the opportunity to form the next national government. ¶3. (U) All election polls currently show the two largest parties -- the center-right Christian Democratic Alliance (CDA) and the center-left Labor Party (PvdA) -- running neck and neck in all major polls, with approximately 40 - 45 seats each. The CDA's partner in the governing coalition, the conservative Liberal Party (VVD),stands at third place with 25-30 seats, while the leftist Socialist Party (SP) is polling at around 15-20 seats. Another ten or so smaller parties are expected to win from one to a handful of seats in the next parliament; these range from GreenLeft and the Social Democrats (D66),on the left, to List Pim Fortuyn (LPF),Group Wilders (GW),and One.nl on the far right, and also include two small orthodox Protestant parties --- ChristianUnion (CU) and the Dutch Reformed Party (SGP). A multitude of tiny, special interest parties -- including the Party of Animals and the Netherlands Transparent Party -- are also in the mix but unlikely to win any seats. BALKENENDE VS BOS: -------------- ¶4. (U) For most of the last two years, all national polls showed the PvdA comfortably ahead of the CDA by as many as 20 seats. Over the last six months, however, Prime Minister -- and CDA leader -- Jan Pieter Balkenende has done a remarkable job of reversing this trend. After taking heat for unpopular social security and health care reforms implemented last year, Balkenende now stands to reap the benefits of sharply decreasing unemployment, higher economic growth, and a budget surplus. Ironically, even though many of the government's economic reforms were driven by coalition partners VVD and (until last spring) D66, neither of these parties has experienced a similar upturn in the polls. ¶5. (SBU) Increasingly, the elections are being viewed not only as a referendum on the current government, but as a U.S.-style "presidential" contest between Balkenende and the PvdA's charismatic leader, Wouter Bos. The relentless media focus on the personalities and values of the two leading candidates, plus the fact that both are moderates appealing to centrist voters, has pushed serious discussion of issues such as immigration/integration questions into the background. Surprisingly, Balkenende's image has so far benefited from this attention more than the photogenic Bos. Turning a former liability into a strength, Balkenende has successfully transformed himself from a bumbling "Harry Potter" clone into a Dutch "everyman," whose occasional gaffes are now seen as signs of honesty and sincerity. In contrast, the more polished Bos has had to fend off charges of being out of touch and too "slick" for the average voter. That said, many PvdA supporters believe Bos has not yet had the opportunity to prove himself, and hold out the hope that his performance in several upcoming one-on-one debates will THE HAGUE 00002308 002.2 OF 003 shift public opinion back in his favor. COALITION SWEEPSTAKES: -------------- ¶6. (SBU) In the Dutch political system, winning the elections -- i.e., becoming the largest party in the Second Chamber -- is only the first step. In a process that traditionally takes from two to six months, a coalition government must be laboriously constructed from the ground up. Having the largest bloc in Parliament generally gives a party first dibs on trying to form a coalition, but is no guarantee of success -- and it is quite possible for the largest party to be excluded from government altogether if several smaller parties band together to form a majority of 76 or more seats. So far, speculation has focused on several possible coalition combinations: -- PVDA/CDA: Although PvdA and CDA together will almost certainly have a majority in Parliament, one effect of the personalization of the race is that neither Balkenende nor Bos is likely to serve in a cabinet in which the other is Prime Minister. This does not rule out the possibility that the two parties could choose to govern together, but it probably does mean that one or the other leaders would first have to step down -- effectively ending their political careers. -- CDA/VVD (PLUS CU): Conventional wisdom holds that if CDA and VVD together win a majority of seats, they will quickly -- i.e., in two to three months -- reform the current coalition and continue to govern, albeit with a new platform and many new faces. If the two parties fall a few seats short of a majority, many observers believe they will look to the small, Protestant Christian Union party (CU) to make up the difference, even though the CU is viewed with suspicion by the secular VVD and as a potential competitor by the CDA. The discredited Social Democrats (D66),which until last spring were in a coalition government with CDA and VVD, are no longer viewed as credible partners by either party and are struggling to even retain one seat. -- PVDA/VVD (PLUS CU or GREENLEFT): If PvdA becomes the largest party, and is unable to form a coalition with CDA (see above),it may look to the VVD to repeat the "purple" or "LibLab" coalition governments of the 1990's. If a few seats are still needed for a majority, the CU is (again) the most likely candidate, although some in the PvdA would prefer to bring in GreenLeft to "balance" the VVD and allow PvdA to govern from the center. Any such coalition, however, would require major compromises by all parties, and could take many months to coalesce. -- PVDA/SP/GREENLEFT: Jan Marijnissen, leader of the formerly Maoist Socialist Party (SP),is actively pushing Wouter Bos to commit to forming a Left-Lefter-Leftist coalition of PvdA, SP, and GreenLeft. In the past year, the SP has even abandoned its long-standing opposition to Dutch NATO membership and private property ownership to make itself more palatable to Center-Left voters. Bos, however, has shown no interest in such a coalition, and the numbers currently do not add up. WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE RIGHT? -------------- ¶7. (U) Four small parties on the far right -- LPF, Group Wilders, One.nl, and Party for the Netherlands are all vying for voters in various degrees on an anti-immigrant, anti- Islam or pro-integration ticket. They are not expected to make a major dent because voters don't appreciate fragmentation and don't understand why they have not combined forces. Moreover, none of these parties have a truly charismatic leader of the stature of the late Pim Fortuyn. The only true leader that does appeal to voters on the far right is Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk but she is firmly embedded in the VVD party and is bound to draw voters away from the far-right splinter parties to the VVD. ISSUES? WHAT ISSUES? -------------- ¶8. (U) Issues and party platforms are, so far, playing a much smaller role in the campaign than appeals to party loyalties and the leadership qualities of individual candidates. To the extent that issues are discussed, the campaign is largely dominated by domestic socio-economic questions, such as the future financing of the state pension scheme, housing policy, education and the purchasing power of mid-level income groups that suffered most from the cabinet's reform policies. Surprisingly, the integration and immigration debate that dominated recent previous THE HAGUE 00002308 003.2 OF 003 elections is not getting much attention, probably because once controversial ideas such as toughening Dutch immigration laws are now considered mainstream. ¶9. (U) Foreign and security policy issues, as such, are playing virtually no role in the general election campaign, although they remain the subject of heated debate within parliament and among political elites. Since the Dutch rejected the EU constitutional treaty in June 2005, the debate in the Netherlands on Europe's future is dead. The Dutch ISAF mission to Uruzgan, which the PvdA ultimately supported after a tough debate last winter, is only expected to reemerge as a serious issue if the situation on the ground deteriorates dramatically with resultant casualties. Even continued participation in the JSF project is not likely to become much of an election issue -- despite the best efforts of some in the PvdA -- because most voters don't particularly care and the issue is too complex. CONTINUITY THROUGH CHANGE: -------------- ¶10. (U) The fact that the three major parties are all vying for centrist voters, plus the reality that two out of the three parties will almost certainly end up in a coalition government together, suggest that the current elections will not produce radical changes in Dutch foreign or defense policies, although the faces and portfolios will certainly change. In any case, the current caretaker government will function fully in such areas as ISAF and other missions during the potentially lengthy coalition formation process, meaning little or no change for at least the next 5-6 months. Schofer