Over the years, it has become a habit to put the thermometer in the cabinet around Budget Day. A good moment to take stock and measure the popularity of the government officials. Especially now that the last year of the Rutte-3 cabinet has started and the voters will determine the new balance of power in a little less than six months. The results of the research agencies of EenVandaag and De Volkskrant give a nice insight into what the voter thinks.
A remarkable unanimity can be observed when it comes to the assessment of Wouter Koolmees, the D66 minister of Social Affairs and Employment. It rises by dot on the popularity meter. De Volkskrant puts Koolmees in first place, on a par with Mark Rutte, who always scores well. Koolmees is also a rising star among the viewers and listeners of EenVandaag. He ends there third behind Wopke Hoekstra and Mark Rutte. A year ago he did not even make it to the top 10. Great Tit is seen as a reliable minister and a hard worker.
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Koolmees owes this growing appreciation to the pension agreement he has concluded with employers and employees and to the support packages that companies and employees have to guide through the corona crisis. Just when confidence in him is at its peak, Koolmees says he will probably no longer be available for a next cabinet after the elections. And he may also pass up membership in parliament. Stopping at your peak, Koolmees takes that very literally. After seven years as a Member of Parliament and more than three years as a minister, it seems time for something else. On Tuesday, as a ‘designated survivor’, he could already get used to the idea of not being physically present when he spoke the speech from the throne.
It will be a loss for D66. Koolmees clearly scores higher than his party members in the cabinet. The new leader Sigrid Kaag, seventh on the evaluation meter, could have used the qualities of Koolmees well. The other D66 ministers, Ingrid van Engelshoven (13th place) and Kajsa Ollongren (15th place second to last), get very little confidence from the voter. And the Kaag effect seems to have almost disappeared. After a brief revival of three seats in the polls surrounding her election, D66 is now back at 12 to 15 seats, considerably less than the 19 of today.
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The yardstick used by the ministers clearly shows which characteristics and results are valued by the voters. This does not always have to do with the political color of the minister. Rutte, for example, scores high as leader of the cabinet, prime minister of all Dutch people and as a clear debater. This has more to do with his own qualities – look at his steadfast action in the MH17 file, his coronation speech that made the Netherlands face the facts – than with his VVD membership. Because in addition to appreciation, there is also a lot of criticism of his liberal positions.
Wopke Hoekstra scores high because he is Minister of Finance, not because he is from the CDA. Ministers of Finance are by nature considered reliable, whether they are from the PvdA (Jeroen Dijsselbloem) or the CDA (Jan Kees de Jager). Hugo de Jonge, disappointingly sixth on the EenVandaag list, scores relatively low due to the not always successful corona policy with a faltering corona app and a test policy that just won’t get off the ground. And corona is not about left or right, conservative or progressive.
Appreciation for ministers therefore has less to do with the preferences of voters. And that’s a good thing. Cabinets should be judged by their actions, not by their political affiliation.
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