Yesterday we had our elections for the States-Provincial (provincial parliament). The people who are elected are also the ones who will choose the representatives in our First Chamber of parliament (also known as the Senaat/Senate). There were also elections for our water boards, but those are of less national importance.

Provisional results of what our First Chamber will look like can be seen below.



As you can see, there is an enormous newcomer, the FvD (Forum voor Democratie, or Forum for Democracy). This very young party led by Thierry Baudet got 2/150 seats in our last parliamentary elections, and is prominently alt-right. Climate change deniers, pro-Nexit, anti-immigration and adheres mostly to other right-wing populist principles. Wiki link here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_for_Democracy_(Netherlands)

FvD mostly gained its voters over the backs of other right-wing parties, notably the PVV (Geert Wilders' party), the CDA (Christian center-right) and VVD (Liberal center-right). Other winners of the day are GroenLinks (GreenLeft), The CU (ChristenUnie/Christian Union, center-left christians) and the PvdD (Partij voor de Dieren/Party for the Animals, radical pro-ecological).

Things to be noted:

• Even though the FvD will be the largest party in the First Chamber, they are still very much a minority. Our political system has become more and more splintered over time.
  
• There is an increasing rift between those who want action against climate change and those who deny climate change.
  
• Established coalition parties tend to lose votes, this has always been the norm.
  
• Whether or not the FvD will be successfull now remains to be seen. They have not yet fielded enough candidates to fill all provincial seats, nor do they have policy laid out in every province. If the party leadership is not very careful with its candidates, the situation could become similar to that of the early 2000's, where Pim Fortuyn's party spectacularly imploded due to candidates not being vetted and general incompetence.
  
• Alt-right sentiment is increasing in popularity. The combined anti-climate action, anti-immigration, pro-nationalist and anti-EU message works better than just the anti-islam message of Wilders.

I'd also like to note that Thierry Baudet, the leader of the FvD, has some very sketchy things in his history. He often uses 'cultural marxism' in his speeches, is very militant in his wording ('warring against the establishment'), distrustful of the arts, degrading towards women ('no means yes') and has met with controversial figures like Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor.



Here you can see him on the left with a wonderful pro-confederate book.

This post was edited by balrog66 on Mar 21 2019 04:35am

Yikes...

not surprising though, anti-islam, anti-mass-immigration, anti-EU stances and stances against the green-left take on climate change are surging everywhere across the western world.


This is all very interesting, I highly appreciate your post btw! Two questions:

did the chamber shift to the left or the right overall? The losses of center-right VVD, CDA, the far-right PVV and the centrist D66 are exactly equal to the gains of the far-right FvD. But iirc (correct me if I'm wrong), D66 was a very centrist party. So both sides of the political spectrum saw a shift towards the fringes, towards the more radical parties. But despite this polarization, it seems as if the chamber overall did shift a little bit to the right, didnt it? (Seats for the left and center-left parties remaining constant despite being shuffled around a bit, 8 seats from center-right and far-right parties going to the new far-right, plus 4 seats from centrists going to the far-right as well.)

and my second question: you say that "Pim Fortuyn's party spectacularly imploded due to candidates not being vetted and general incompetence" - but didnt it implode mainly because a left-wing extremist assassinated Pim Fortuyn, the charismatic leader of his party?

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 21 2019 04:47am

To the first question: Yes, the total amount shifted a bit to the right. But the current coalition in government consists of CDA, VVD, CU and D66. Thus it is very unlikely that they will seek cooperation with FvD, with some center-left in their wings. More likely is that cooperation will be divided amongst issues of policy, now that the coalition lost the majority in the First Chamber. IE with environmental issues cooperation will be gotten with GL or PvdA, with more conservative issues SGP/maybe FvD. In previous elections where PVV got big, VVD got burned. In the government Rutte-I the PVV supported a minority coalition, and withdrew that support in order to collapse the government and have new elections. VVD members will be wary of similar situations in the future.

The second question: Pim Fortuyn was assassinated before the elections happened, and the party did lean on him a lot. The assassination also caused his party to skyrocket in the polls. But most of their candidates were recruited before he died. He just had too little qualified people with any amount of political experience. Parties that grow that fast have a very hard time finding quality candidates that are both willing to put the time in to become competent politicians and not have an iffy history. With Pim Fortuyn alive, it could have been that he'd have pruned the bad apples, but I think that the party would still have experienced those problems due to the fast growth of a very young party.

Yep had this in my news today that your government lost its majority because of populists.
Climate denial is epic, i hope you will drown them first.

This post was edited by Saucisson6000 on Mar 21 2019 05:03am

You are a true friend of mankind, saucy!

according to this news site, the FvD has now pulled ahead of PM Rutte's VVD and is expected to win 13 seats in the senate, becoming the strongest party:

https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/4649641/uitslag-verkiezingen-provinciale-staten-forum-voor-democratie

True. This does not change much though, as coalitions are formed through the Second Chamber, not the First. It will make it slightly more difficult to pass legislation for the coalition.

it never ceases to amaze me that green/left parties can manage to gain votes these days, unbelievable

i have a question regarding the fvd though, when i read about them some time ago they were very much in favour of environmental protection with demands for tax cuts for renewable energy and sustainable agriculture
or is my memory failing me there?

its only natural that in the days of a completely illogical and irrational climate discussion that some people would be against it
and the constant and ridiculous use of the term populist isnt helping either

Baudet's campaign ran entirely on railing against the 'corrupt party cartel', 'leftwing elite', 'canal elite', etc. In his case the term fits very much.

Regarding his views on climate change and environmental policy: They always deny the human influence on climate change, sometimes doubting the existence.

An example would be this tweet:



Translation:


https://twitter.com/thierrybaudet/statuses/948464423827632128

Their programme tells us this: They want us to invest in nuclear (Thorium reactors mostly, not fusion, which is more costly than other renewables). They do want action against the plastic waste in the ocean. On the other hand, they want to create a new large airport in the ocean in addition to expanding the already existing Schiphol. They want to redo the vehicle tax and go from pay per vehicle to pay per usage. Lastly, they want people who have damaged homes due to the gas drilling in Groningen to receive compensation.

Source:
https://forumvoordemocratie.nl/standpunten/duurzaamheid-innovatie

thanks for the translation, gotta say that i didnt need it here
if you take away that last bit of that populism definition you have the job description of any politician ot there, thats why i oppose the inflationary use of that term to submit a negative message

his statements also show a lack of knowledge when it comes to an accurate description, but he is right that the al gore movie is fearmongering at its finest
the increase in extreme weather is still a subject of debate

however its actually funny that he has better ideas for environmental protection despite being a "climate skeptic" (god, i hate this stupid word creation)
since the fusion reactor is probably still decades away thorium reactors are a really good alternative and i would like to point out the massive potential of what is currently considered atomic waste
might be costly to some extent, but the key word is reliability here

and the airport.....sounds like an epic idea and pretty much like the gigantic fail that is the BER airport (i am sure you have heard of that)
do you really need that?