The first election in election year

The citizens of the Netherlands today go and vote in a general election.

This election is the first tricky election in a year that has quite a few tricky elections: After today, the next will be France’s presidential election in two rounds between April and May and of course Germany’s general election come September. The fate of Europe depends on these coming elections. In particular, if Marie Le Pen becomes the next President of France, it will be ‘game over’ for the EU as former Italian premier Enrico Letta said in Malta a few weeks back. In Germany, the long reign of Angela Merkel may be brought to an end by Martin Schultz.

We focus today on the Dutch election not only because it takes place today but also because up to some weeks ago, it looked like the populists, anti-EU, anti-euro, xenophobic party of Geert Wilders could change forever the political geography of the country.

This can still happen and we will only get to know when the results are out. But according to the most recent polls and analysis, it would seem the Dutch are less prone to follow chimeras as the British and then the American electors did when they voted for populist choices. Years before Donald Trump arrived on the scene, a popular Dutch politician fulminated

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against Islam – Pim Fortuyn, until he was killed by an environmental activist in 2002. He was succeeded by Geert Wilders, a former member of the party now in government, the VVD, and who took Fortuyn’s stands a notch or two higher.

So 15 years later, people in the Netherlands were not surprised to hear Mr Trump speak as he did. For years they had been listening to Mr Wilders and his Party for Freedom (PVV) denounce ‘hate palaces’ (mosques), and ‘street terrorists’ (children with immigrant roots).

In the meantime, its main political parties had become so similar that the VVD was able to form two stable governing coalitions with its political rival, the social-democratic Labour Party. As usually happens with such ‘grand coalitions’ space on the Opposition side was left to the extremist party and, as usually happens, this grew bigger and bigger.

As late as 1998, the Dutch national social research agency was still reporting an all-time high in public trust in politics, almost on North Korean levels. Three years later, that trust had been decimated by a half.

The rightwing populists came up with something novel and then, obviously, the post 9/11 world-wide sentiment put wind in their sails. The Netherlands found itself being dragged to the right.

The Dutch centre, like its counterparts in the US and the UK, portrays itself as pragmatic and post-ideological, confident that when the economy recovers, voters will return to the fold. In the election campaign it has become very clear this will not do. An improved economy, even if it were to happen, will not heal all wounds.

A radically different narrative is needed, an idea or vision that may not sweep the polls just yet but that could, like Fortuyn 15 years ago, suddenly attract a groundswell of support.

Keep your eyes open, when the results come out and look to see what inroads have been made by the Green Party, the GroenLinks. It may even do better than the established Labour Party and in the inevitable coalition negotiations still to come, it may even squeeze out Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his VVD.

In this campaign, Rutte has adopted the antiimmigrant rhetoric used by Wilders, proposing a PVV-lite.

On the contrary, there is a grassroots movement for a universal basic income. Three years ago, nobody had heard of it. Today, leaders in 20 Dutch cities want to try it. This is an example of a genuine antidote to rightwing populism. Instead of clinging to the status quo or conceding ground to the populists, citizens can take matters into their own hands.