PVV leader Geert Wilders has told reporters he considers it “unfair” that he will not be prime minister in the next coalition government. On Wednesday night it emerged that the leaders of all four parties involved in the coalition talks will remain in the lower house of parliament, including...
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”Huilie huilie” (cry cry) is what Wilders would say if it wasn’t about himself.
After months of largely failed negotiations it looks like we’re going to experiment with an extra-parliamentary program-cabinet. The leaders of the four rightwing parties (far-right, reincarnation of christian democrats, farmer party and liberal conservatives (Rutte’s party) ) will not, unlike usual, become ministers nor prime ministers in a cabinet. Instead, they stay in the house as MPs. Some other ministers will be professionals, not politicians. Some could even be people from the left.
Program-cabinet is a term that hasn’t been used in many years, decades even. There’s some precedent, like after ww2 when the goal was to rebuild. Effectively it means concrete goals broadly outlined (reducing immigration, solving housing crisis, the nitrogen problem, “subsistence security”) but the details and implementation involves looking for support in the entire parliament, from right to left. This to prevent the coalition from collapsing as soon as they disagree and don’t stick to the plan.
Normally largest party in the house provides PM, but since that is Wilders (with ‘only’ 25% of votes) and only the farmer party and Wilders’ own party wants him as PM, and the rest of right and all of left doesn’t, they’re taking a different road.
Wilders can cry it’s undemocratic but 25% of the votes gets you 25% of power. That’s not enough to claim PM ‘democratically’. Don’t know yet who’ll be PM instead of Wilders, he’ll have decisive No vote in that, but not an overruling yes vote. Chances are high it will at least be a less controversial person that won’t make us look like complete idiots on the international stage. Someone with political experience, someone from the right before far-right got large, thus someone from Rutte’s party,
Upside for Wilders is that he won’t have to behave like a PM, leader of all 4 parties in the coalition, allowing him to continue campaigning like a populist for another 4 years critizing all of the rest.
Given the election results, this sure isn’t the worst possible outcome.