At the VVD, they are especially relieved that the downward trend has not continued

Had D66 leader Sigrid Kaag jumped on the table after the first exit poll? Mark Rutte, VVD campaign leader Sophie Hermans said at the start of the results evening, “jumped up from the couch”. Rutte sat with his closest employees in the VVD party room.

They are happy there for sure: the outgoing prime minister’s party remains the largest, even after it three cabinets-Rutte. But the VVD top is above all relieved. Our own polls have also shown a downward trend in recent weeks, and it can be risky to come across as a loser at the end of a campaign.

Also read: How team-Rutte the Rutte doctrine disappeared

The entire campaign had revolved around Rutte himself, but according to Hermans, the success of these elections was “a victory for the entire VVD”. The party leader had become prime minister again. Who must immediately look for other parties to help form Rutte IV. In the corridors of the VVD, in addition to D66 and CDA, JA21 in particular was seen as a serious option – to obtain extra seats in the Senate. VVD, D66 and CDA do not get a majority there and Rutte, people around him know, no longer just assume that things will be fine there. In Rutte II, with the PvdA, it turned out to be much more difficult to get enough support there than Rutte and Diederik Samsom, then PvdA leader, had thought.

Much attention for Rutte’s bicycle

Rutte had started election day at the polling station in the primary school in Benoordenhout, The Hague, where he attended as a child. The foreign reporters paid a lot of attention to his bicycle.

On Wednesday evening he was the first to address the members via YouTube. According to him, the voters had realized that the VVD could help the country through this crisis.

With him as the leader – and so he had campaigned for weeks. For Rutte and the VVD, the elections should not be too much about substantive themes, but about Rutte himself. In commercials, people on the street next to a cardboard Rutte talked about the prime minister as a touchable but solid leader.

In the formation it is obvious, said Rutte on Wednesday evening, that the VVD and D66 will talk together about a coalition. “I think everyone wants a new cabinet as soon as possible.” Rutte said that he would do his best for this “in all modesty”. He felt “humble” and found it “an honor” that he could “take the lead”.

But how modestly had he proceeded with his ‘recovery plan’ for the Netherlands after corona, even before the formation had started?

That plan, he told on Tuesday evening NRC, he had made before and it contains elements of what the VVD wants, but according to him it is also full of ‘good ideas’ from other parties to get out of the crisis.

Rutte’s ‘recovery plan’ appears to be the first chapter of a new coalition agreement

Rutte said he hoped for as much support as possible from the House of Representatives, and quickly. The plan could then become the first chapter of a new coalition agreement.

Rutte: „If I go there [aan de formatietafel] this will be my proposal. ” He is already trying to bend the formation to his will. It shows how natural power has become for him, after ten years as a prime minister.

After the exit polls, he told VVD members on YouTube that it was “a nice evening”. “But now we are hard at work again, we have very, very, very much to do.”