The financial consequences of the Pandemic aren't felt yet by most people. The govt has been spending money like mad to keep people complacent.

I honestly have no way of estimating the effects on our economy, I think most people don't.

Trends from the latest polls:



Last column is the difference with current Parliament occupation, second to last column is the polling of today compared to a week ago.

D66 seems to be gaining momentum. Their leader, Sigrid Kaag, has been getting into her groove. At the start of the campaign she was deemed elitist and often she came across a bit cold. But she has come into her own, as a very competent speaker and she even managed to put Rutte in his place. I gotta say I'm starting to lean towards voting D66. They're still pretty green but a bit more liberal on the economic side than PvdA or PvdD.

Which kind of party is "Code Oranje"? They at least have a badass name!

Co-democracy orangeNetherlands.

The party is fairly similar to the PVV/FvD. With subjects like: Closing border, no expenses for energy transition, higher salary for public service jobs.

Code orange doesn't really have a plan, it will be formed out of populism and referenda, /e: while being more pragmatic than FvD and PvD at the same time. For instance: they don't deny man made climate change and don't want to ban religious books.

This post was edited by Knoppie on Mar 14 2021 07:52am

Your country's political culture is definitely taking the election system of proportional representation to its limits, with each ideology or political movement being splintered among 2-3 different parties which only differ on minor details.

It's kind of a side-effect of the societal change that has happened over time.

In the past, religion was the main driver for people's vote. The atheists/agnosts voted PvdA, catholics voted KVP (now CDA) and the protestants voted CU/SGP.

The bigger parties have had trouble keeping a broad base with the ideological base of their parties having to change over time. It's only now that PvdA is starting to focus on younger people, because their voters are on average old boomers who grew up when PvdA did good stuff (Drees/Den Uyl). The established parties have a hard time finding a new line to attract voters with, whilst also maintaining historical party line.

The one who stands out in this is VVD really, as they don't really have an ideological stance in a way. Ruthless pragmatism is their focus. Most of their speeches will not be about actual policy, but about working hard, keeping the country afloat, etc. Though I doubt how much they will be able to maintain this when Rutte is gone.

Very interesting. Basically, what you're saying is that in the NL, political realignment and generational replacement did not lead to the same parties having new coalitions, but rather to the new parts of the coalition forming their own parties, leading to an ever more fractured political landscape.

Regarding the VVD: here in Germany, the mainstream center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is very similar. Under Merkel, they got rid of (any pretense of) having a platform altogether. Their whole raison d'être is being in power, but without any clear vision of what they want to do with this power other than technocratic governing and preserving the status quo. And they're not even good at it, lol. Perhaps this is a case of "the grass is always greener on the other side", but to me it seems as if the VVD and Rutte are a more competent and less error-prone version of the CDU and Merkel.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 14 2021 09:16am

The VVD has the most scandals by far of all parties (including the extreme ones). Just a few to note:

- The 'Teevendeal': A secret agreement between the dutch AG and drug dealer Cees H. Part of this deal is repayment of a confiscated sum of 4.7m Guilders. The details of this deal were kept secret by a few of VVD's most prominent people. They lied multiple times in the open about the details of the deal, that the exact amount of money was unknown and that it was a bit over a million, until a receipt of the transaction was recovered and 4 prominent VVD'ers stepped down (Teeven - secretary of Justice, Opstelten - minister of Justice, van der Steur - minister of Justice after Opstelten, van Miltenburg - chair of Parliament).

- Parliament member van Haga: In 2018 his reputation as a slumlord surfaced, basically not conforming to his duties as a landlord. In 2019 arrested because of DUI. Removed from the VVD in late 2019, then joined FvD.

- Senate member Duthler: Removed from the VVD in 2019 due to a conflict of interest, she voted on a law in which advice from her own company was given.

- Parliament member ten Broeke: Affair with a party aide. Stepped down.

- Minister Zijlstra: Stepped down because he lied about meeting Putin at a dacha to Parliament.

- Minister Hennis: Stepped down after a scathing report on the deaths of two soldiers in Mali, who died because of faulty mortar shells. The shells were unsafe and the medical facilities inadequate.

- Secretary Weekers: Stepped down after people hadn't received their payments from the Belastingdienst (Dutch IRS).

And this is just the last 4-5 years, and not even close to all of them.

Oh, I wasnt referring to minor scandals or the typical, everyday corruption. When I said error-prone, I was thinking about strategic political errors. Like shutting down Germany's nuclear power plants in a panic because an earthquake-triggered tsunami had caused nuclear havoc on the other side of the planet, and then wondering a couple of years later why Germany (neither at risk of earthquakes nor tsunamis) has the highest consumer energy prices in the world and a worse carbon record than its European neighbors despite funneling more government subsidies into decarbonization...

When we're talking corruption scandals, two officials from the CDU were forced to step down last week after they were caught personally enrichting themselves on mask deals during the pandemic.
But yes, I gotta admit that I'm way out of my depth when it comes to Dutch politics.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 14 2021 09:55am

Every week, Volt's expected result improves. Getting 3 seats would be amazing, and hopefully it would serve as a stepping stone for the party to grow throughout the continent.

Hope they get a good result