Dutch Election Campaign and Prime Ministerial Question Dominates

He would rather not do it himself, but the question of who will continues to arise during this election campaign. NSC party leader Pieter Omtzigt said Saturday evening News hour that it is “a possibility” that his party will ask someone from outside to become prime minister if NSC becomes the largest on November 22. “We have not yet reached an agreement as a party,” said Omtzigt. Isn’t it strange that his party does not provide clarity to voters about this, asked presenter Mariëlle Tweebeeke. Omtzigt doesn’t think so, he also said this weekend The Telegraph. “First see how the formation runs.”

This campaign breaks with the decades-long Dutch tradition that the party leader of the largest party automatically also becomes prime minister. By allowing uncertainty about the premiership, the prime ministerial question dominates this campaign even more than usual. This is also because it is certain that the Netherlands will have a new prime minister after thirteen years of Mark Rutte: Rutte will not be party leader again. It is still very exciting which party will deliver the prime minister. NSC and VVD are leading in the opinion polls, but GroenLinks-PvdA also hopes to become the largest party despite being a few virtual seats behind.

The three leaders in the polls all tried to relate to the prime minister’s question in their own way this campaign weekend. Frans Timmermans, the leader of GroenLinks-PvdA, wanted to join WNL on Sunday did not say whether he thinks his competitor Omtzigt is suitable as prime minister, but did say: “Managing is different from controlling, he will have to prove that.” I do have that experience as a director myself, Timmermans seemed to be saying.

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Extremely right

The GroenLinks-PvdA party leader also explicitly aimed at WNL for the strategic vote of left-progressive voters by warning that Omtzigt, whether he becomes prime minister or not, is heading for a right-wing conservative coalition. At the University of Twente, Omtzigt suggested last week that he sees something in a six-party cabinet of VVD, NSC, BBB, CDA, SGP and JA21. “I am glad that he is clarifying something,” said Timmermans, “namely that he prefers to go to the right.”

In this campaign, Timmermans, unlike Omtzigt, is trying to portray himself as the ideal prime minister and statesman. He traveled to Berlin last weekend for an appointment with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and took a plane to Spain on Friday to address the congress of the Party of European Socialists (PES) on Saturday. In his speech, Timmermans warned against the cooperation of the center-right with the extreme right. “Wherever the extreme right is allowed to govern, you clearly see that they swallow up center-right parties. And the political center becomes infected. We will never cooperate with the extreme right.”

Rutte thinks handing out flyers and talking to voters is “perhaps the most fun for everyone at the VVD”

Timmermans’ trip, a week and a half before the House of Representatives elections, led to some discussion at talk show tables and on social media in recent days. This penultimate weekend before the elections, Timmermans is in Spain, but he canceled Sunday evening’s RTL election debate. Timmermans states against NRC that he “had to make a decision.”

“It turned out to fit in well with the rest of the program. We have already been able to talk to each other about next year’s European elections, what the major themes will be. We talked about the Middle East and the tensions in our societies.” Timmermans had a full program again on Sunday in the Netherlands: in addition to his performance at WNL, he participated in the Climate March in Amsterdam and worked on the traditional party leader newspaper of The Telegraph.

Rutte took to the streets

For the VVD, the outgoing prime minister was surprisingly on the streets more than the candidate prime minister. Mark Rutte went to six places to distribute flyers on Saturday and Sunday, including Almere and Utrecht. It is the first time this campaign that Rutte has been deployed for the party and that is quite remarkable, because these elections are about the Netherlands after the Rutte era. On the other hand, Rutte is traditionally good at contacting voters on the street and the VVD probably thinks that his international visibility, this week with a trip to Qatar and Israel, can reflect positively on the party.

VVD party leader Dilan Yesilgöz, who went out to hand out flyers on Saturday and will participate in the second RTL debate on Sunday, has to balance this campaign when it comes to Rutte. She does not want to distance herself too much from the man to whom the VVD owes a lot, but she must also show what she wants to do differently. In an interview with NRC she previously criticized the “watery compromises” of recent years, and called the Surcharge Affair and the Groningen gas dossier “blind spots” of Rutte’s cabinet.

Rutte himself did not want to comment on Yesilgöz and the choices she makes as party leader, he said at one of his Friday press conferences, shortly after it became clear that he was staying away and Yesilgöz would succeed him. He did not want to rule over his grave, but he did want to stand behind her.

This weekend it was no longer possible to keep him inside, says a VVD spokesperson. “The blood runs where it can’t go.” Rutte particularly enjoys handing out flyers and talking to voters, according to the spokesperson. “Perhaps the nicest of everyone at the VVD.”

Rutte does not want to say whether Pieter Omtzigt is suitable to succeed him. “I don’t say anything about other parties.” Is there a campaign-related reason for Rutte – the best-known VVD member – to get involved in the campaign? Rutte waves it away. He will always continue to hand out flyers, he says. “I owe that party so much.”

With the cooperation of Guus Valk.

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2023-11-12 18:08:48
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