The End of the Wilders Era?
As you may know, my hometown The Hague is the center of Dutch Government.
Today Geert Wilders left the coalition talks that lasted already 7 weeks and were aimed to create an acceptable package of cutting expenditure by Dutch Government.
Wilders stated he withdrew his support for the minority Government led by Mark Rutte.
Less than two years, on another platform I presented Rutte (left on the photo) and Maxime Verhagen (right on the photo) as our new Prime Minister and Vice Prime Minister when they started this adventure. Both with the typical Geert Wilders hairdo. An apt and fabulous caricature I found on FB then.
New General Elections expected in September/Ocober 2012
It is expected that new General Elections will be held in September Oktober 2012. Until then Rutte and Verhagen will remain in office and have a difficult task of getting the 2013 budget accepted by a Parliament that is divided an has too many small political parties.
Again Rutte may need his life vest to keep the Dutch Ship of State afloat.
My expectations
I expect Rutte’s VVD (Liberal) party to win the elections, but how the landscape will look after the elections is very unsure. Verhagen’s CDA (Christen Democratic) party most certainly will lose. I do hope Wilders PVV party will lose according to a very old Dutch political wisdom: “He who breaks a Coalition Government, will suffer in the elections” . The darkest horse is the conglomerate of left wing (various Social Democrats and Labour) parties. I believe it is likely a new government will consist of Liberals and some left wing parties.