Minority coalition looms after Rutte swipes left
on PvdA-GL pact
Politics September 1, 2021
Mark Rutte leaving the latest round of
preliminary talks on Tuesday. Photo: ANP/HH/ Robin Utrecht
The next
Dutch government looks likely to be a minority coalition after all other
options were categorically ruled out this week. Almost six months after the
general election on March 17, the negotiations to form a new cabinet have not
even started because of a deadlock between the two largest parties, VVD and
D66, over their preferred partners. The biggest stumbling block has been the
refusal of the right-wing liberal VVD and the Christian Democrats (CDA) to form
a coalition with both the Labour party (PvdA) and GroenLinks. Either party has
enough seats to secure a majority of MPs for the cabinet, but their leaders,
Lilianne Ploumen and Jesse Klaver, have resisted efforts to prise them apart
over the summer. Reforming the previous four-way coalition with the
ChristenUnie (CU) is also a non-starter after D66 leader Sigrid Kaag said two
weeks ago she was not prepared to do another deal with the CU. The two parties
have irreconcilable differences on ethical issues such as euthanasia and
abortion. Caretaker prime minister and VVD leader Mark Rutte said on Tuesday
that a coalition of five risked being too unstable. ‘We don’t need both of them
[GroenLinks and PvdA] for a majority,’ he said. That view was shared by CDA
leader Wopke Hoekstra, whose party was Rutte’s first choice before the
election, but lost four seats and faces a potentially fractious EGM next
weekend. ‘We don’t think five parties are sensible or logical,’ he said. ‘We
could [still] negotiate with either of the two.’ Constructive opposition
GroenLinks leader Klaver said the decision to exclude the pact between his party
and the PvdA was ‘un-Dutch’, while his counterpart Ploumen described it as
‘regrettable’. ‘The Netherlands is looking for solutions and they’ve slipped a
bit out of sight,’ she said. ‘This isn’t compatible with the traditions we have
in the Netherlands,’ said Klaver. ‘In my view democracy is the loser. As
politicians we have a duty to help this country go forward.’ Rutte is now
expected to try to form a three-way coalition with D66 and CDA, which will have
73 seats, three short of a majority. But the Christian Democrats will lose
another seat if Pieter Omtzigt, who quit the party in June, returns from sick
leave next week and becomes an independent MP. A minority cabinet will be
dependent on ‘constructive opposition’ from PvdA and GroenLinks, as well as
other parties such as the CU, to get its legislation through parliament. Rutte
said on Tuesday he foresaw a positive relationship, having worked with the two
parties in the second half of his previous term. ‘On the issues of going green,
climate change, nitrogen emissions and education we know what the score is,’ he
said. ‘So we will absolutely be reaching out and looking for substantial
co-operation in a new cabinet. But not in a five-party cabinet,’ he said.
However, the preliminary talks have driven a wedge between D66 and CDA and made
a three-way partnership with the VVD more difficult. D66 leader Sigrid Kaag
said on Tuesday that the ball was in Rutte’s court. ‘It’s now up to the VVD as
the largest party to find a way forward,’ she said. ‘It’s difficult for us to
see the exclusion of GroenLinks and PvdA as a logical move.’
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