Mark Rutte’s last stand
A new breed of populists are on track to strip the Dutch
prime minister of his majority.
By TOM-JAN
MEEUS 3/18/19, 4:02 AM CET
Updated 3/18/19, 8:53 AM CET
The populist threat Rutte claimed to have ring-fenced in the
last election hasn’t gone away; it has transformed into something new and more
dangerous for the Dutch leader | Bart Maat/ANP via Getty Images
THE HAGUE — Mark Rutte painted his last election victory as
a battle between the “right” and “wrong kind of populism.” Thousands of
journalists were there in 2017 to watch him win. Two years on, the journalists
are mostly gone, but the Dutch prime minister is back in ring — and this time
he may not emerge victorious.
Elections on March 20 will see Dutch voters choose new
regional parliaments, which will in turn determine the makeup of the new Dutch
senate. Polls suggest Rutte’s administration is on track to lose its majority
in the chamber by a large margin, leaving the government in limbo.
The biggest source of danger is the rapid rise of the Forum
voor Democratie (Forum for Democracy), led by 36-year-old Thierry Baudet. In
2017, the right-wing populist party won only two seats in the national
parliament. This year, it is slated to become the country’s third or fourth
largest party, according to the latest Dutch poll of polls.
Baudet has changed the image of right-wing populism in the
country, which, until 2017, was dominated by far-right rabble-rouser Geert
Wilders, whose harsh language and anti-intellectual approach to politics — he
blames to the “elite” for pretty much everything — became his trademark.
The real difficulty for Rutte’s party is that it is being
torn apart
Baudet’s party hews relatively closely to Wilders when it
comes to policy: Though it is less fervently anti-Islam, it shares Wilders’
anti-immigration and Euroskeptic stance. But their styles couldn’t be more
different.
Baudet is himself a member of the so-called elite: He
studied political sciences and law and worked as columnist for NRC Handelsblad
and as an editorial adviser for the high-brow Sunday talk show “Buitenhof.”
He’s chosen to target highly educated voters and focus on cultural issues: He
wants to get rid of “the infiltration” of the left in areas like public
service, media and education.
In contrast to Wilders, who mostly refuses to be interviewed
by mainstream media and resorts to Twitter as his main outlet, Baudet runs a
sophisticated social media operation and appears regularly on popular TV talk
shows, for whom he’s become somewhat of a ratings magnet.
In parliament, he likes to suggest that no politician has
the brains to compete with his depth of knowledge. Some of his former friends
have observed that the biggest risk to Baudet’s political career is Baudet
himself.
With support for Baudet running 8 to 10 percent ahead of the
March vote, Rutte and his allies are starting to get nervous. Polls suggest
Rutte’s VVD will remain the largest party in parliament by a slim margin, but
with Wilders in second place, the populists' share could make up as much as 25
percent of the vote — their best result ever.
The real difficulty for Rutte’s party is that it is being
torn apart: The party faces growing competition on the right while its
coalition partners are pushing the government to the left on important
policies.
Last year, Rutte had to withdraw a tax proposal that would
have benefited multinational companies planning to move headquarters from the
United Kingdom to the Netherlands after Brexit.
More recently, the party withdrew its opposition to amnesty
for a group of migrant children. It was also backed into supporting the
coalition in buying a “strategic” stake in AirFrance-KLM, despite having always
taken the position that government should stay out of business as a matter of
principle.
Skeptics have long questioned whether the current government
can hold the center of Dutch politics. At this point, polling suggests that the
center will be blown away next week. The Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and
liberal Democrats 66 both run the risk of losing half of their vote. (Rutte’s
third partner, a small Christian party, CU, is doing well.)
All may not be lost, however; the governing parties may yet
survive. Elections for provinces are known for their low turnout, with populist
voters less likely to vote. And Baudet, who has very little experience in
politics, is likely to have trouble living up to expectations in the final
stages of the campaign. Last week, he suddenly wavered on his long-standing
position that the Dutch should leave the EU, which gave some in government
fresh hope that he might not be up to the task.
But if Baudet and Wilders stand their ground, things are
going to be complicated for the
administration and Rutte’s party.
It is all but certain that the populist duo will not help
the government in regaining a Senate majority. Both reject, for example, the
need for climate change policies, a major issue the government has promised to
tackle. The current four-party coalition earlier agreed to decide this spring
on a set of policies to reduce carbon emissions by 49 percent in 2030.
And while a boost in the polls for Dutch populists is
unlikely to translate into governing power in the March election, it will mean
that the administration’s best — and perhaps only — option for holding on is to
work with the Greens in the senate.
Indeed, the Greens appear to be heading for a big win. They
could become the third largest party in the country behind VVD and Wilders'
far-right party — and the main political force on the left.
Their leader Jesse Klaver — another young and upcoming
politician — has a good personal relationship with Rutte, but his party has
cultivated an image for being tough on climate change. Klaver won’t be able to
accept a weak deal that doesn’t match its climate ambitions.
In Klaver, Rutte seems to have spotted a way out of his
predicament. In a surprise move a week before election day, the prime minister
announced that his coalition is willing to accept two of the most important
climate policy proposals of the Greens.
The details are to be worked out after the election, when
the big question will be if Rutte’s already grumpy party can digest a move
further to the left on climate change.
The alternative for Rutte is grim. It would leave his
government unable to pursue significant new policies on the issue, with the
likely outcome that it will go down later this year.
If that happens, everything will be uncertain in Dutch
politics, including the prime minister’s job.
Rutte’s second battle with “the wrong kind of populism” is
likely to be far more consequential than his first one.
Tom-Jan Meeus is a political columnist for NRC Handelsblad.
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