Why?

The next elections were originally foreseen for 11 May 2011. However, the social democrat Labour Party, PvdA, decided to pull the plug out of the government coalition led by Christian democrat Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende (CDA, member of the European People's Party). Soon after the collapse, ELDR Vice President Lousewies van der Laan (D66, The Netherlands) wrote on ELDR's blog that the PvdA Party Leader and Deputy Prime Minister at that time, Wouter Bos, wanted to stick to a promise the Dutch government had agreed to in 2007 that the last Dutch troops would leave the Afghan province of Uruzgan in 2010, arguing that proportionally the Dutch had already done more than their fair share of supporting NATO's endeavours there.

Whereas Wouter Bos wanted to keep this agreement, the CDA wanted another extension. The Parliament therefore set a deadline of 1 March 2010 for a clear government proposal on the way ahead, forcing a showdown between the coalition partners. With local elections on 3 March 2010, the PvdA was in no mood to back down or compromise, with the collapse as a result, which had an immediate effect on the results of these elections, less than 10 days later.

While both main government parties CDA (down more than 10%) and PvdA had dramatic losses in the March elections, the loss for the PvdA was less than predicted in the polls prior to the government collapse. The big winners were the two ELDR member parties, D66 foremost (an almost fourfold increase of seats) as well as the VVD (an increase of more than 200 seats nationwide), while also local parties saw an increase in their support.

The latest state of play:

Two events around the March 2010 local elections as well as the bad shape of the economy clearly influence the general elections and explain why the elections campaign is set to return to a classical left-right divide.

The populist right movement Party of Freedom, led by Geert Wilders MP, participated in the local elections of 3 March 2010 in two municipalities only, the administrative national capital The Hague and the new town Almere. While his party scored well in both cities and obtained very sizeable city council groups, the PVV did not succeed to enter into any coalition agreement, mostly because of their radical and islamophobic attitude and rhetoric that is not appreciated by the other parties, which left many of his party's voters in disillusionment and in search of a political party that will potentially be able to govern.

Furthermore, the PvdA's party leader at that time, Wouter Bos, decided he wants to spend more time with his family, which staged a change of social democrat leadership and as such made way for the popular mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen. Cohen commands a lot of respect among mostly but not exclusively, potential centre-left voters. The PvdA soon after the change of leadership saw a confirmation of the upward trend in their poll ratings.

Together with the state of the economy, these two events have pushed the focus of the elections from "values" based issues, which influenced Dutch politics for a great part of the last decade, towards economic issues. The PvdA under the leadership of Cohen has made a hard left turn proposing higher taxes for the well-off, more redistribution of wealth, while being soft on cost saving measures to keep government finances sustainable. This is also something proposed by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB), as unaddressed, the budget deficit will spin out of control and unemployment will rise. The natural opposition to the left leaning PvdA programme in the perception of many voters, however, is not anymore the other main political party, the CDA, but rather the liberal VVD.

Since March, the opinion polls show the VVD, led by Mark Rutte MP, in a clear upward trend. Polls held after the weekend of 24-25 April - full of political parties' electoral Congresses - confirm that the PvdA is the dominant party on the left and the VVD the dominant party on the right side of the political spectrum. The VVD is almost on an equal footing with the number 1, the PvdA, which scores 22% in the polls.

What do the liberals want?

Both ELDR member parties' manifestos have tough measures to keep the budget deficit under control. D66 aims to improve the state finances by 15bn Euro in the next four years in order to facilitate a budget surplus by 2020, while the VVD wants to improve it by saving 20bn Euro in the next four years.

D66 political leader Alexander Pechtold: "D66 gives responsibility back to the citizens, while offering more chances to find a job, a house and better education." D66 will keep taxes at the same level.  The VVD wants to guide the Netherlands through the economic crisis by a mix of tax reductions on labour and entrepreneurship, tough deficit control measures and investments in security, roads and education. VVD leader Mark Rutte: "the VVD wants lower taxes as people themselves know better how to spend money than the government does."

Lousewies van der Laan: "it is hoped that a new coalition will be able to get to work with desperately needed measures to battle the economic crisis, lead on climate and energy issues and ensure social cohesion. I expect the voters to turn to parties that have a proven track record in this regard, which includes my own. In fact, the longest serving Balkenende government was the second one with the two liberal parties, VVD and D66."

Conclusions

To conclude, there are five weeks to go until the Election Day on 9 June 2010. It is likely that D66 will be able to copy their score in the local elections and at least quadruple their result. However, the big test will be if the VVD will be able to continue the upward trend, overtake PvdA, and become the number 1 party of the Netherlands, for the first time in its history.

Mark Rutte already stated that he is ready to become Prime Minister. On Saturday 24 April, the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes and VVD Party President Ivo Opstelten are trump cards too as possible VVD Prime ministerial candidates. In any case, both ELDR member parties are in a good shape and ready for the elections as well as are expected to play key roles in Dutch politics after 9 June 2010.

ELDR wishes both its member parties the best of luck in the run-up to the elections. A good start for a more credible Dutch government would be to construct it on solid liberal foundations!