Dutch politics are fascinating, but the nuances are tough to access for a non-Dutch speaker like myself. I read a few articles online, chat with other expats in front of the kids' school and get some of the lowdown in reports from Dennis, who actually goes to an office and works with Dutch people.
But Dutch politics are very complicated and totally different from politics back home. Unlike our two rapidly-becoming-irrelevant parties, there appear to be 11 major parties represented in the Dutch parliament, (with confusingly similar names like PVV and VVD) and at least nine other parties putting candidates out there, parties with names like "Party for Mankind and All Other Earth-Dwellers" and the "Pirate Party."
But to focus on the fringes trivializes the larger differences between Dutch and U.S. politics. The center here is considerably left of the U.S. center. The Dutch pride themselves on their reputation for openness, tolerance, and enlightened social welfare policy. So the right is kind of left. But it's more complicated than that, as I keep trying to wrap my mind around concepts like the "conservative left." The candidate spewing anti-immigrant proposals -- really, he sounds worse than Rush Limbaugh -- links his ideas to values we would consider liberal. Muslim immigrants are a threat to gay rights, says Geert Wilders, and to women's rights. Send them back. Tax their headscarves.
Wilders, who is either the hope of Holland or the boogeyman, depending where you sit, gained a lot of ground in yesterday's election, more than doubling his party's seats in the parliament. (By the way, that's him upper left. Could any U.S politician get away with that kind of a dye job?)
Nobody gains a majority in these elections; it's all a matter of seats and percentages and which party aligns itself with which after the elections. The top winners yesterday were Labour, Wilders' PVV, and the Liberals (VVD), which the newspapers refer to as the three "right-wing" parties. The Christian Democrats (left-wing), who along with Labour were in charge until February, lost ground.
Liberal, of course, means something different here than it does at home, with an emphasis on free markets.
It all makes a person wonder how we Americans ever thought two parties could cover the range of political ideas. No surprise that American party membership gets lower every year. But if you think that the vigor of all these ideological groupings and regroupings encourages political participation, think again. By 4 p.m., turnout was only at 38 percent.
If I have thoroughly confused you, and even if I haven't, here is a very good essay by Ian Buruma which spells things out much more clearly.
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