- Email: [email protected]
The parliamentary election in the Netherlands, 22 November 2006
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 26 (2007) 797e837
832
Despite the power-sharing pact between the leaders of the PLC and FSLN, and the animosity between the ALN and the PLC during the campaign, it is likely that most PLC voters would have supported Montealegre in a second round. Meanwhile, the split between the parties of the left is such that some supporters of the MRS might not have supported Ortega. In short, as much as Ortega’s win expresses very real citizen demands for new solutions to entrenched social problems, it must also be understood as a product of the electoral context, specifically the 2000 election law in combination with a divided opposition in 2006. Whether political change or continued compromise will characterise the next five years in Nicaragua remains to be seen. References Anderson, L., Dodd, L., 2005. Learning Democracy: Citizen Engagement and Electoral Choice in Nicaragua. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. Angus Reid Global Monitor, 2006. Montealegre Climbs to First Place in Nicaragua. Angus Reid Global Monitor: Polls & Research. 23 March. Available online at: http://www.angus-reid. com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/1131. Briones, W., 2006. MRS se queja ante observadores OEA. El Nuevo Diario. 10 June. Available online at: http://www.elnuevodiario. com.ni/2006/06/10/politica/21459.
BBC, 2003. Nicaragua’s former leader jailed. BBC News. 8 December. Available online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3299289.stm. Castan˜eda, J., Nava, P., 2007. The year of the ballot. Current History February, 51e57. CIA, 2007. Nicaragua. The World Factbook Available online at: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ nu.html. Consejo Supremo Electoral. 2007. Escrutinio en linea. Available online at: http://www.cse.gob.ni. Dye, D.R., 2004. Democracy Adrift: Caudillo Politics in Nicaragua. Unpublished report. Available online at: http://www.hemisphere initiatives.org/democracyadrift.htm. Dye, D.R., McConnell, S.A., 2002. Observing the 2001 Nicaraguan Elections. The Carter Center, Atlanta, GA. Jua´rez, L., 2006. Llego´ Oliver North. La Prensa. 23 October. Available online at: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/archivo/2006/octubre/ 23/noticias/politica/151637.shtml. McConnell, S.A., 2007. Nicaragua’s turning point. Current History February, 83e88. Richard, P., Booth, J.A., 1995. Election observation and democratization: reflection on the Nicaraguan case. In: Seligson, M., Booth, J.A. (Eds.), Elections and Democracy in Central America Revisited. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, pp. 202e223. Roig-Franzia, M., 2006. Cha´vez’s image becomes tool for attack in Mexican presidential race. Washington Post 28 June, A14. Sandoval, C., 2006. OEA lamenta injerencismo. El Nuevo Diario. 26 September. Available online at: http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/ 2006/09/26/politica/29839.
doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2007.06.006
The parliamentary election in the Netherlands, 22 November 2006 Kees Aarts , Henk van der Kolk 1 Department of Political Science and Research Methods, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands Received 16 January 2007; accepted 6 February 2007
1. Background
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ31 53 4893251; fax: þ31 53 489 2159. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. Aarts), h. [email protected] (H. van der Kolk). 1 Tel.: þ31 53 4893281; fax: þ31 53 489 2159.
The second cabinet headed by Jan Peter Balkenende was appointed on 27 May 2003, after his first cabinet fell, which resulted in an early election on 22 January 2003 (Irwin and van Holsteyn, 2004). Balkenende-I had included ministers from the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), the conservative-
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 26 (2007) 797e837
liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), and the newcomer List Pim Fortuyn (LPF).2 The CDA and VVD continued their cooperation in Balkenende-II, but the parliamentary majority was now provided by the small progressiveliberal party Democrats 66 (D66) rather than the rudderless LPF. In retrospect, Balkenende’s second cabinet was pre-occupied by immigration issues and the performance of some key political players. The CDAe VVDeD66 coalition agreement aimed at economic recovery, effective government, and a safer society. The major policy instruments included tight budgets, stricter rules for various social benefits, introducing market forces in health care, and a tough position on crime; the democratic reforms included a new electoral system and the introduction of directly elected mayors. External events soon took over the creation of the government’s public image, however. Before and after the new government was installed, Balkenende was severely criticized for his handling of two affairs related to the royal family, sensitive matters in a system in which the Crown can do no wrong.3 At the first major electoral test for the Balkenende-II government e the European Parliament election, 10 June 2004 e all three coalition parties lost support compared with the previous European election, with the opposition Labour Party (PvdA) and the newcomer Europa Transparant the winners.4 During JulyeDecember 2004, the Netherlands held the presidency of the European Council, and set a date for starting negotiations over Turkey’s EU membership. This prompted Geert Wilders, who was firmly opposed to Turkish membership, to leave the VVD in September 2004, but he kept his seat as an independent. Wilders became an anti-Islamist voice in parliament, eventually standing in the 2006 election with his own party, Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) (see below). On 2 November 2004, the filmmaker and writer Theo van Gogh was murdered by a DutcheMoroccan Islamic activist. Van Gogh had often ridiculed Islam in his columns and in his recent film ‘Submission Part I’; the film’s scenario had been supplied by the former asylum seeker from Somalia, now MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali (VVD). 2
The LPF was established by Pim Fortuyn in 2002; he was assassinated shortly before the 2002 election. 3 The affairs involved allegations of abuse of power against Queen Beatrix by her niece Princess Margarita de Bourbon de Parme, and allegations of a former relationship between Mabel Wisse Smit, fiance´e of Beatrix’s son Prince Johan Friso, and a well-known criminal. 4 Europa Transparant was founded by a former European civil servant Paul van Buitenen.
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Van Gogh’s murder aggravated tensions between Islamic immigrants and parts of the Dutch public. Several schools, mosques, and churches were hit by arson; Hirsi Ali and Wilders went into hiding; and the police arrested a group of Islamic activists who were allegedly planning more political assassinations. A proposal for the direct election of mayors (who are appointed by the Crown) was defeated in the First Chamber of Parliament (Eerste Kamer) on 22 March 2005. The vice-premier Thom de Graaf (D66), Minister for Administrative Reform, resigned and was replaced by Alexander Pechtold, a former mayor. In an effort to reconstruct the cabinet’s agenda, the coalition parties drafted a new agreement on 26 March 2005, known as the ‘Eastern Agreement’. Rather than proposing further democratic reforms, the cabinet installed a National Convention of 14 members, mostly from academia, to advise on the Dutch political system; its report, in October 2006, was largely ignored. Also, a ‘Citizen’s Assembly’ was installed to advise on the electoral system. Its report, in November 2006, proposed offering voters the choice between a party vote and a candidate vote (on the party list), but left the proportional electoral system intact.5 On 1 June 2005, the EU constitutional treaty was put to a consultative referendum, the first in modern times in the Netherlands. After a heated campaign dominated by the smaller parties on the left and the right e including the ChristenUnie (CU), Socialist Party (SP), and Wilders e the referendum showed an unexpectedly high turnout (63%) and a decisive defeat (61e39%) of the treaty. This was only three days after French voters had dealt the first blow (Aarts and van der Kolk, 2006). The referendum exposed deep divisions between the opinions of the political elites and voters on European integration. After the referendum, almost complete silence fell on the issue of the constitution and the EU’s future. By the end of 2005, new tensions arose within the cabinet about the participation of Dutch forces in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan. The D66 ministers initially opposed Dutch participation, with the party threatening to leave the cabinet. On 2 February 2006, a large majority of the Second Chamber (Tweede Kamer) supported the mission, but D66 did not. Although its ministers stayed on, its parliamentary leader resigned.
5 The option of a preferential vote had existed since 1917. The new aspect in the 2006 proposal was the option of a party vote, without specifying the name of the candidate.
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The municipal elections of 7 March 2006 showed large gains for the SP and the PvdA e the left opposition parties e and losses for the parties in the CDAeVVDe D66 coalition. Van Aartsen, VVD’s parliamentary leader, resigned, and the party organized a new leadership election. One contender was Rita Verdonk, Minister for Integration, an outspoken proponent of strict immigration and integration policies. A television documentary about Hirsi Ali, a VVD MP, in May 2006 provided evidence that Hirsi Ali had lied about her past when applying for asylum in the Netherlands in 1992. In reaction, Minister Verdonk stated that she now considered Hirsi Ali’s naturalization void. The next day, Hirsi Ali gave up her seat in parliament.6 After heated debates in parliament, Verdonk stated in a letter to the Second Chamber that Hirsi Ali had not lied about her identity according to Somalian customs, and that she would remain a Dutch national. For her part, Hirsi Ali admitted that she had provided false details about her past. In the following parliamentary debate, however, it became clear that Hirsi Ali’s statement had been Verdonk’s price for Hirsi Ali’s Dutch passport. As a consequence, D66 supported a no-confidence vote against Verdonk (which failed to get a majority) and the D66 ministers announced their resignation from the cabinet on 29 June 2006. Thus, the government lost its parliamentary majority. A CDAeVVD caretaker minority government (Balkenende-III) was formed and an election called for 22 November.7 2. Parties and leaders After Pim Fortuyn’s death, personal animosities defied attempts to form a unified successor party. Hilbrand Nawijn, former Minister of Integration (LPF), founded the Party for the Netherlands; Marco Pastors, a popular alderman of Fortuyn’s Rotterdam party, also founded a national party; and the LPF itself changed its name to ‘Lijst Vijf Fortuyn’.8 To no avail: none of these parties won a single seat in the election. The only successful new populist-right party was Geert Wilders’ PVV, 6
Hirsi Ali had planned to leave parliament by the end of the summer of 2006, as she had already accepted a position at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. A requirement for obtaining her US visa was Dutch citizenship and passport. 7 The Balkenende-III government suffered further blows. For example, a report on safety at a detention centre for evicted illegal immigrants, where a 2005 fire had killed 11 immigrants, led to the resignation of the Minister of Justice (Piet-Hein Donner, CDA) and Minister of Public Housing (Sybilla Dekker, VVD). Rita Verdonk, the third minister involved, remained in post. 8 The party produced a remarkable television commercial showing its new leader, literally, as a re-incarnation of Fortuyn himself.
which focused on ‘law and order’ issues from a strong anti-immigration position. The battle for former LPF voters divided the VVD. In the leadership election,9 the party executive proposed Mark Rutte, a young junior minister; his candidacy was contested by Rita Verdonk, who imitated aspects of Fortuyn’s style and rhetoric. Rutte’s victory was narrow (51e46%), and from her position as second on the list of VVD candidates, Verdonk conducted a personal election campaign. A leadership election was also held by D66 in the wake of the Afghanistan ISAF debate (see above), in which the new cabinet minister Alexander Pechtold won a narrow victory over parliamentary party leader Loesewies van der Laan. The leaders of the CDA and PvdA, Balkenende and Wouter Bos, respectively, remained in place. Jan Marijnissen continued to lead the left-wing SP. The small Christian parties e CU and the Political Reformed Party (SGP) e also kept their incumbent leaders. An odd newcomer was the Partij voor de Dieren (Animal Party), which, according to its leader Marianne Thieme, was ‘the first party in the world exclusively for animals’. The party was supported by several wellknown writers, artists, and other public figures. 3. Polls, debates, and vote matchers When the election campaign started, at the end of September, there was no clear focus on a set of issues. The introduction of new taxes in anticipation of an ageing population, restrictions on tax deductions for mortgage interest, and the eviction of specific groups of illegal immigrants were discussed but hardly affected the public. The issue of European integration was largely ignored. Lacking clear substantive issues, the main campaign news came from unremitting opinion polls.10 One direct consequence of the polls was that some party leaders did not, or were not invited to, participate in the major televised debates. This happened, for example, to Wilders’ PVV, which was polled as one of the ‘smaller competitors’ on the eve of the election, 9
The election of party leaders is relatively new in the Netherlands. Before 2002, open elections amongst party members were used only by D66 and GroenLinks since 1995. In the other parties, the new party leader was ‘selected’ by thunderous applause at a party convention. In 2002, after the PvdA introduced an open election, other parties followed. 10 The rise of Internet surveys has made the production of data extremely cheap but quality controls have become very difficult. During the campaign and after the election, critical accounts of the role of political polls in the democratic process were published. See, for example, Elsevier, 21 October 2006; De Groene Amsterdammer, 27 October 2006; Intermediair, 16 November 2006.
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 26 (2007) 797e837
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whereas the CU and GroenLinks (GL) were counted among the ‘larger competitors’. The next day, PVV won more seats than either CU or GL. Dutch election campaigns usually include a number of televised debates between leaders of the main parties. In 2006, the first major debate took place between Bos (PvdA) and Balkenende (CDA) on 3 November; both were rated equally highly. The final debates on the eve of election day featured the leaders of the six smaller parties (PVV, PvdD, SGP, D66, Fortuyn, and E´e´n NL) (according to the polls), followed by the leaders of the six largest parties (CDA, PvdA, VVD, SP, GL, CU). The latter debate was the only one to appear on the list of the 10 most widely viewed TV programmes that week, with about 2.5 million viewers. The public television broadcast on election night itself drew about the same number of viewers.11 In 1989, the Instituut voor Publiek en Politiek, a centre for civic participation, developed the first Votematcher (StemWijzer),12 a simple computer programme that compares an individual’s position with that of the parties on some 30 issues. In 1994, Votematcher could be consulted on the worldwide web, but its use has multiplied since; in the 2006 election campaign, the original Votematcher was consulted 4.7 million times (in an electorate of some 12.2 millions). The main competing programme, Votecompass (Kieskompas) by the daily Trouw and the Free University, was consulted about two million times. Many other programmes comparing the opinions of users with those of the parties were available on the net and widely used. Reliable estimates about the influence of ‘vote matchers’ are hard to find, but various sources suggest that some 2e15% of voters based their choice e at least in part e on the outcome of these computerized aids.13
machines is subject to approval by the Ministry of Home Affairs, but their purchase is a municipal matter. For the 2006 municipal elections, Amsterdam (one of the few municipalities still using paper-and-pencil) introduced a recently approved type of voting machine. A local civic action group started a widely publicized campaign against the use of voting machines, contending that they could jeopardize the secrecy and fairness of elections, and that the results could not be verified. As a result, the Ministry banned the new voting machines a few weeks before election day. Amsterdam and several other municipalities fell back on the old paper ballots. The security and fairness of the electoral process were to be investigated by an independent committee after the election.14 Other problems resulted from the trial introduction, in more than half of the municipalities, of a voting pass to replace the traditional election ‘summons’ card.15 The voting pass enables people to cast their vote in any polling booth in their municipality. In contrast with the old election summons, however, voters cannot identify themselves with an identity card alone: the voting pass must be shown and handed in at the polling station. Many voters apparently had not realized this, and lost or forgot their voting pass. Also, there were many complaints that voters had not received their voting pass in the mail.16 For Dutch nationals residing abroad, this was the first parliamentary election in which they could cast their vote using the Internet. Perhaps partly because of the complicated registration procedure for expatriates, turnout among them remained extremely low. Having been invited by the Dutch government, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights monitored the election for the first time ever.
4. Conduct of the election
5. Results of the election
Stand-alone voting computers have increasingly replaced paper-and-pencil voting in the Netherlands since the late 1980s. The use of various types of voting
The outcome of the elections differed from both short-term and long-term expectations; see Table 1. At 80%, turnout was high, even showing a small increase from 2002 and 2003. At the start of the campaign, many observers expected a close result
11
Source: Stichting Kijkonderzoek (www.kijkonderzoek.nl). For an English-language version, see www.stemwijzer.nl. 13 A self-completion survey among the 2002 Votematcher’s users suggests that about 15% of respondents have changed their vote intention after using the Votematcher. See: Marcel Boogers, Enqueˆte Bezoekers StemWijzer. Unpublished manuscript, Tilburg University. This sample may, however, be very selective, since less than 1% of users invited to complete the questionnaire actually did so. Answers to an open-ended question in the 2003 Dutch Parliamentary Election Study show that about 2% of respondents mention ‘‘Internet/Stemwijzer’’ as the spontaneous motivation of their party choice (see www.dpes.nl). 12
14 The committee was chaired by Minister of State Frits Korthals Altes and charged to report to the Minister of Home Affairs by September 2007, so that its recommendations could be implemented by 2010 or 2011. 15 Voting rights are recorded automatically when registered citizens turn 18 years. At some point before the election, municipalities establish who is entitled to vote on the basis of their population register. 16 Handelingen Tweede Kamer Regeling van werkzaamheden, TK 20, 1479e1483, 29 November 2006.
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Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 26 (2007) 797e837
Table 1 Results of parliamentary elections, Netherlands 2002e2006 Parties
Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) Labour Party (PvdA) Socialist Party (SP) People’s Party for Freedom & Democracy (VVD) Party for Freedom (PVV) Green Left (GroenLinks) Christian Union (CU) Democrats 66 (D66) Animal Party (PvdD) Political Reformed Party (SGP) (List Pim) Fortuyn Other parties Total
Political leader (2006)
2002
2003
2006
%
Seats
%
Seats
%
Seats
Jan Peter Balkenende Wouter Bos Jan Marijnissen Mark Rutte
27.9 15.1 5.9 15.4
43 23 9 24
28.6 27.3 6.3 17.9
44 42 9 28
26.5 21.2 16.6 14.7
41 33 25 22
Geert Wilders Femke Halsema Andre´ Rouvoet Alexander Pechtold Marianne Thieme Bas van der Vlies Olaf Stuger
e 7.0 2.5 5.1 e 1.7 17.0 2.3 99.9
e 10 4 7 e 2 26 2 150
e 5.1 2.1 4.1 0.4 1.6 5.7 1.3 100.0
e 8 3 6 0 2 8 0 150
5.9 4.6 4.0 2.0 1.8 1.6 0.2 1 100.1
9 7 6 3 2 2 0 0 150
Total valid votes Total blank and invalid Total electorate Turnout (all votes/electorate)
9,501,152 14,074 12,035,935 79.1
9,654,475 12,127 12,076,711 80.0
9,838,683 16,315 12,264,503 80.4
Sources: http://www.kiesraad.nl/verkiezingsuitslagen and http://www.nlverkiezingen.com/TK2002.html.
between the CDA and PvdA; in the event, the CDA took eight seats more than the PvdA. Compared with 2003, the PvdA’s losses were remarkably high. Also, practically all polls under-estimated the gains of the leftwing SP and the right-wing PVV. The SP more than doubled its seats in parliament, and the PVV entered parliament with nine seats. The orthodox-reformed CU won according to expectations, and the Animal Party took two seats. The losses of the VVD were expected, yet its result carried a major surprise: after the preferential votes had been counted, Rita Verdonk appeared to have won more votes than the party leader Mark Rutte, which was unprecedented.17 From a longer-term perspective, this election once more showed the high volatility that has characterized Dutch elections since the early 1990s. Again, the party landscape in 2006 was highly fragmented: the Second Chamber included 10 parliamentary parties, and the number of ‘effective parties’ stood 17 Rutte won 553,200 votes as against Verdonk’s 620,555. Whilst electors vote for a specific candidate on the party list, in practice a large majority pick the first candidate on the list. To distinguish them from votes for the party leader, votes for other candidates are called ‘preferential votes’. The number of preferential votes needed to overturn the party list order, which is determined by the party, has gradually declined over the past decades. It rarely happens that candidates gain a seat with preferential votes that they would not have gained otherwise. In 2006, the Turkey-born D66 candidate Fatma Koser Kaya, who won considerable support within the DutcheTurkish community, provided the only case.
at 5.5. As is evident from Fig. 1, there is a marked contrast between the extent of seat volatility pre- and post-1994. Moreover, the 2006 election revealed increasing polarization over the post-World War II period: the 17 seats for parties to the right of the VVD was second only to the 2002 election (when the LPF entered parliament); the 32 seats to the left of the PvdA was the highest since 1945. 6. Aftermath After the election, cabinet formation seemed extremely difficult. At least three parties were needed for a parliamentary majority, and neither the CDA nor PvdA e the largest parties although both had lost seats e had voiced a strong coalition preference before the election. Balkenende’s caretaker CDAeVVD government thus continued in office. Meanwhile, electoral instability in the Netherlands was highlighted again immediately after the cabinetformation process started. The new parliament voted for immediately suspending the eviction of illegal immigrants pending the emergence of a new government. Minister Verdonk refused to implement the decision. On 13 December 2006, the Tweede Kamer passed a vote of censure on her. In defiance of the unwritten constitutional rules, Verdonk was allowed to remain a cabinet minister, although she lost the Integration portfolio.
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 26 (2007) 797e837
20
By February 2007, the Netherlands had had a minority cabinet for over 7 months. The Second Chamber was fragmented and polarized; voting amongst the Dutch electorate had once more proven to be highly volatile. The largely positive message carried by the financial and economic indicators of the Dutch economy e the main target of the Balkenende-II cabinet in 2003 e had not been translated into electoral success.
10
References
60 50
Net # seat changes
837
40 30
0
1958 1963 1968 1973 1978 1983 1988 1993 1998 2003 2008
Year Fig. 1. Seat volatility in parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, 1959e2006. Source: Own calculations based on official election results (www.kiesraad.nl).
doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2007.02.002
Aarts, K., van der Kolk, H., 2006. Understanding the Dutch ‘No’: The Euro, the east and the elite. PS: Political Science and Politics 39, 243e246. Irwin, G.A., van Holsteyn, J.J.M., 2004. The 2002 and 2003 parliamentary elections in The Netherlands. Electoral Studies 23 (3), 551e557.
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Despite the power-sharing pact between the leaders of the PLC and FSLN, and the animosity between the ALN and the PLC during the campaign, it is likely that most PLC voters would have supported Montealegre in a second round. Meanwhile, the split between the parties of the left is such that some supporters of the MRS might not have supported Ortega. In short, as much as Ortega’s win expresses very real citizen demands for new solutions to entrenched social problems, it must also be understood as a product of the electoral context, specifically the 2000 election law in combination with a divided opposition in 2006. Whether political change or continued compromise will characterise the next five years in Nicaragua remains to be seen. References Anderson, L., Dodd, L., 2005. Learning Democracy: Citizen Engagement and Electoral Choice in Nicaragua. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. Angus Reid Global Monitor, 2006. Montealegre Climbs to First Place in Nicaragua. Angus Reid Global Monitor: Polls & Research. 23 March. Available online at: http://www.angus-reid. com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/1131. Briones, W., 2006. MRS se queja ante observadores OEA. El Nuevo Diario. 10 June. Available online at: http://www.elnuevodiario. com.ni/2006/06/10/politica/21459.
BBC, 2003. Nicaragua’s former leader jailed. BBC News. 8 December. Available online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3299289.stm. Castan˜eda, J., Nava, P., 2007. The year of the ballot. Current History February, 51e57. CIA, 2007. Nicaragua. The World Factbook Available online at: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ nu.html. Consejo Supremo Electoral. 2007. Escrutinio en linea. Available online at: http://www.cse.gob.ni. Dye, D.R., 2004. Democracy Adrift: Caudillo Politics in Nicaragua. Unpublished report. Available online at: http://www.hemisphere initiatives.org/democracyadrift.htm. Dye, D.R., McConnell, S.A., 2002. Observing the 2001 Nicaraguan Elections. The Carter Center, Atlanta, GA. Jua´rez, L., 2006. Llego´ Oliver North. La Prensa. 23 October. Available online at: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/archivo/2006/octubre/ 23/noticias/politica/151637.shtml. McConnell, S.A., 2007. Nicaragua’s turning point. Current History February, 83e88. Richard, P., Booth, J.A., 1995. Election observation and democratization: reflection on the Nicaraguan case. In: Seligson, M., Booth, J.A. (Eds.), Elections and Democracy in Central America Revisited. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, pp. 202e223. Roig-Franzia, M., 2006. Cha´vez’s image becomes tool for attack in Mexican presidential race. Washington Post 28 June, A14. Sandoval, C., 2006. OEA lamenta injerencismo. El Nuevo Diario. 26 September. Available online at: http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/ 2006/09/26/politica/29839.
doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2007.06.006
The parliamentary election in the Netherlands, 22 November 2006 Kees Aarts , Henk van der Kolk 1 Department of Political Science and Research Methods, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands Received 16 January 2007; accepted 6 February 2007
1. Background
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ31 53 4893251; fax: þ31 53 489 2159. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. Aarts), h. [email protected] (H. van der Kolk). 1 Tel.: þ31 53 4893281; fax: þ31 53 489 2159.
The second cabinet headed by Jan Peter Balkenende was appointed on 27 May 2003, after his first cabinet fell, which resulted in an early election on 22 January 2003 (Irwin and van Holsteyn, 2004). Balkenende-I had included ministers from the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), the conservative-
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 26 (2007) 797e837
liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), and the newcomer List Pim Fortuyn (LPF).2 The CDA and VVD continued their cooperation in Balkenende-II, but the parliamentary majority was now provided by the small progressiveliberal party Democrats 66 (D66) rather than the rudderless LPF. In retrospect, Balkenende’s second cabinet was pre-occupied by immigration issues and the performance of some key political players. The CDAe VVDeD66 coalition agreement aimed at economic recovery, effective government, and a safer society. The major policy instruments included tight budgets, stricter rules for various social benefits, introducing market forces in health care, and a tough position on crime; the democratic reforms included a new electoral system and the introduction of directly elected mayors. External events soon took over the creation of the government’s public image, however. Before and after the new government was installed, Balkenende was severely criticized for his handling of two affairs related to the royal family, sensitive matters in a system in which the Crown can do no wrong.3 At the first major electoral test for the Balkenende-II government e the European Parliament election, 10 June 2004 e all three coalition parties lost support compared with the previous European election, with the opposition Labour Party (PvdA) and the newcomer Europa Transparant the winners.4 During JulyeDecember 2004, the Netherlands held the presidency of the European Council, and set a date for starting negotiations over Turkey’s EU membership. This prompted Geert Wilders, who was firmly opposed to Turkish membership, to leave the VVD in September 2004, but he kept his seat as an independent. Wilders became an anti-Islamist voice in parliament, eventually standing in the 2006 election with his own party, Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) (see below). On 2 November 2004, the filmmaker and writer Theo van Gogh was murdered by a DutcheMoroccan Islamic activist. Van Gogh had often ridiculed Islam in his columns and in his recent film ‘Submission Part I’; the film’s scenario had been supplied by the former asylum seeker from Somalia, now MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali (VVD). 2
The LPF was established by Pim Fortuyn in 2002; he was assassinated shortly before the 2002 election. 3 The affairs involved allegations of abuse of power against Queen Beatrix by her niece Princess Margarita de Bourbon de Parme, and allegations of a former relationship between Mabel Wisse Smit, fiance´e of Beatrix’s son Prince Johan Friso, and a well-known criminal. 4 Europa Transparant was founded by a former European civil servant Paul van Buitenen.
833
Van Gogh’s murder aggravated tensions between Islamic immigrants and parts of the Dutch public. Several schools, mosques, and churches were hit by arson; Hirsi Ali and Wilders went into hiding; and the police arrested a group of Islamic activists who were allegedly planning more political assassinations. A proposal for the direct election of mayors (who are appointed by the Crown) was defeated in the First Chamber of Parliament (Eerste Kamer) on 22 March 2005. The vice-premier Thom de Graaf (D66), Minister for Administrative Reform, resigned and was replaced by Alexander Pechtold, a former mayor. In an effort to reconstruct the cabinet’s agenda, the coalition parties drafted a new agreement on 26 March 2005, known as the ‘Eastern Agreement’. Rather than proposing further democratic reforms, the cabinet installed a National Convention of 14 members, mostly from academia, to advise on the Dutch political system; its report, in October 2006, was largely ignored. Also, a ‘Citizen’s Assembly’ was installed to advise on the electoral system. Its report, in November 2006, proposed offering voters the choice between a party vote and a candidate vote (on the party list), but left the proportional electoral system intact.5 On 1 June 2005, the EU constitutional treaty was put to a consultative referendum, the first in modern times in the Netherlands. After a heated campaign dominated by the smaller parties on the left and the right e including the ChristenUnie (CU), Socialist Party (SP), and Wilders e the referendum showed an unexpectedly high turnout (63%) and a decisive defeat (61e39%) of the treaty. This was only three days after French voters had dealt the first blow (Aarts and van der Kolk, 2006). The referendum exposed deep divisions between the opinions of the political elites and voters on European integration. After the referendum, almost complete silence fell on the issue of the constitution and the EU’s future. By the end of 2005, new tensions arose within the cabinet about the participation of Dutch forces in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan. The D66 ministers initially opposed Dutch participation, with the party threatening to leave the cabinet. On 2 February 2006, a large majority of the Second Chamber (Tweede Kamer) supported the mission, but D66 did not. Although its ministers stayed on, its parliamentary leader resigned.
5 The option of a preferential vote had existed since 1917. The new aspect in the 2006 proposal was the option of a party vote, without specifying the name of the candidate.
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The municipal elections of 7 March 2006 showed large gains for the SP and the PvdA e the left opposition parties e and losses for the parties in the CDAeVVDe D66 coalition. Van Aartsen, VVD’s parliamentary leader, resigned, and the party organized a new leadership election. One contender was Rita Verdonk, Minister for Integration, an outspoken proponent of strict immigration and integration policies. A television documentary about Hirsi Ali, a VVD MP, in May 2006 provided evidence that Hirsi Ali had lied about her past when applying for asylum in the Netherlands in 1992. In reaction, Minister Verdonk stated that she now considered Hirsi Ali’s naturalization void. The next day, Hirsi Ali gave up her seat in parliament.6 After heated debates in parliament, Verdonk stated in a letter to the Second Chamber that Hirsi Ali had not lied about her identity according to Somalian customs, and that she would remain a Dutch national. For her part, Hirsi Ali admitted that she had provided false details about her past. In the following parliamentary debate, however, it became clear that Hirsi Ali’s statement had been Verdonk’s price for Hirsi Ali’s Dutch passport. As a consequence, D66 supported a no-confidence vote against Verdonk (which failed to get a majority) and the D66 ministers announced their resignation from the cabinet on 29 June 2006. Thus, the government lost its parliamentary majority. A CDAeVVD caretaker minority government (Balkenende-III) was formed and an election called for 22 November.7 2. Parties and leaders After Pim Fortuyn’s death, personal animosities defied attempts to form a unified successor party. Hilbrand Nawijn, former Minister of Integration (LPF), founded the Party for the Netherlands; Marco Pastors, a popular alderman of Fortuyn’s Rotterdam party, also founded a national party; and the LPF itself changed its name to ‘Lijst Vijf Fortuyn’.8 To no avail: none of these parties won a single seat in the election. The only successful new populist-right party was Geert Wilders’ PVV, 6
Hirsi Ali had planned to leave parliament by the end of the summer of 2006, as she had already accepted a position at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. A requirement for obtaining her US visa was Dutch citizenship and passport. 7 The Balkenende-III government suffered further blows. For example, a report on safety at a detention centre for evicted illegal immigrants, where a 2005 fire had killed 11 immigrants, led to the resignation of the Minister of Justice (Piet-Hein Donner, CDA) and Minister of Public Housing (Sybilla Dekker, VVD). Rita Verdonk, the third minister involved, remained in post. 8 The party produced a remarkable television commercial showing its new leader, literally, as a re-incarnation of Fortuyn himself.
which focused on ‘law and order’ issues from a strong anti-immigration position. The battle for former LPF voters divided the VVD. In the leadership election,9 the party executive proposed Mark Rutte, a young junior minister; his candidacy was contested by Rita Verdonk, who imitated aspects of Fortuyn’s style and rhetoric. Rutte’s victory was narrow (51e46%), and from her position as second on the list of VVD candidates, Verdonk conducted a personal election campaign. A leadership election was also held by D66 in the wake of the Afghanistan ISAF debate (see above), in which the new cabinet minister Alexander Pechtold won a narrow victory over parliamentary party leader Loesewies van der Laan. The leaders of the CDA and PvdA, Balkenende and Wouter Bos, respectively, remained in place. Jan Marijnissen continued to lead the left-wing SP. The small Christian parties e CU and the Political Reformed Party (SGP) e also kept their incumbent leaders. An odd newcomer was the Partij voor de Dieren (Animal Party), which, according to its leader Marianne Thieme, was ‘the first party in the world exclusively for animals’. The party was supported by several wellknown writers, artists, and other public figures. 3. Polls, debates, and vote matchers When the election campaign started, at the end of September, there was no clear focus on a set of issues. The introduction of new taxes in anticipation of an ageing population, restrictions on tax deductions for mortgage interest, and the eviction of specific groups of illegal immigrants were discussed but hardly affected the public. The issue of European integration was largely ignored. Lacking clear substantive issues, the main campaign news came from unremitting opinion polls.10 One direct consequence of the polls was that some party leaders did not, or were not invited to, participate in the major televised debates. This happened, for example, to Wilders’ PVV, which was polled as one of the ‘smaller competitors’ on the eve of the election, 9
The election of party leaders is relatively new in the Netherlands. Before 2002, open elections amongst party members were used only by D66 and GroenLinks since 1995. In the other parties, the new party leader was ‘selected’ by thunderous applause at a party convention. In 2002, after the PvdA introduced an open election, other parties followed. 10 The rise of Internet surveys has made the production of data extremely cheap but quality controls have become very difficult. During the campaign and after the election, critical accounts of the role of political polls in the democratic process were published. See, for example, Elsevier, 21 October 2006; De Groene Amsterdammer, 27 October 2006; Intermediair, 16 November 2006.
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whereas the CU and GroenLinks (GL) were counted among the ‘larger competitors’. The next day, PVV won more seats than either CU or GL. Dutch election campaigns usually include a number of televised debates between leaders of the main parties. In 2006, the first major debate took place between Bos (PvdA) and Balkenende (CDA) on 3 November; both were rated equally highly. The final debates on the eve of election day featured the leaders of the six smaller parties (PVV, PvdD, SGP, D66, Fortuyn, and E´e´n NL) (according to the polls), followed by the leaders of the six largest parties (CDA, PvdA, VVD, SP, GL, CU). The latter debate was the only one to appear on the list of the 10 most widely viewed TV programmes that week, with about 2.5 million viewers. The public television broadcast on election night itself drew about the same number of viewers.11 In 1989, the Instituut voor Publiek en Politiek, a centre for civic participation, developed the first Votematcher (StemWijzer),12 a simple computer programme that compares an individual’s position with that of the parties on some 30 issues. In 1994, Votematcher could be consulted on the worldwide web, but its use has multiplied since; in the 2006 election campaign, the original Votematcher was consulted 4.7 million times (in an electorate of some 12.2 millions). The main competing programme, Votecompass (Kieskompas) by the daily Trouw and the Free University, was consulted about two million times. Many other programmes comparing the opinions of users with those of the parties were available on the net and widely used. Reliable estimates about the influence of ‘vote matchers’ are hard to find, but various sources suggest that some 2e15% of voters based their choice e at least in part e on the outcome of these computerized aids.13
machines is subject to approval by the Ministry of Home Affairs, but their purchase is a municipal matter. For the 2006 municipal elections, Amsterdam (one of the few municipalities still using paper-and-pencil) introduced a recently approved type of voting machine. A local civic action group started a widely publicized campaign against the use of voting machines, contending that they could jeopardize the secrecy and fairness of elections, and that the results could not be verified. As a result, the Ministry banned the new voting machines a few weeks before election day. Amsterdam and several other municipalities fell back on the old paper ballots. The security and fairness of the electoral process were to be investigated by an independent committee after the election.14 Other problems resulted from the trial introduction, in more than half of the municipalities, of a voting pass to replace the traditional election ‘summons’ card.15 The voting pass enables people to cast their vote in any polling booth in their municipality. In contrast with the old election summons, however, voters cannot identify themselves with an identity card alone: the voting pass must be shown and handed in at the polling station. Many voters apparently had not realized this, and lost or forgot their voting pass. Also, there were many complaints that voters had not received their voting pass in the mail.16 For Dutch nationals residing abroad, this was the first parliamentary election in which they could cast their vote using the Internet. Perhaps partly because of the complicated registration procedure for expatriates, turnout among them remained extremely low. Having been invited by the Dutch government, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights monitored the election for the first time ever.
4. Conduct of the election
5. Results of the election
Stand-alone voting computers have increasingly replaced paper-and-pencil voting in the Netherlands since the late 1980s. The use of various types of voting
The outcome of the elections differed from both short-term and long-term expectations; see Table 1. At 80%, turnout was high, even showing a small increase from 2002 and 2003. At the start of the campaign, many observers expected a close result
11
Source: Stichting Kijkonderzoek (www.kijkonderzoek.nl). For an English-language version, see www.stemwijzer.nl. 13 A self-completion survey among the 2002 Votematcher’s users suggests that about 15% of respondents have changed their vote intention after using the Votematcher. See: Marcel Boogers, Enqueˆte Bezoekers StemWijzer. Unpublished manuscript, Tilburg University. This sample may, however, be very selective, since less than 1% of users invited to complete the questionnaire actually did so. Answers to an open-ended question in the 2003 Dutch Parliamentary Election Study show that about 2% of respondents mention ‘‘Internet/Stemwijzer’’ as the spontaneous motivation of their party choice (see www.dpes.nl). 12
14 The committee was chaired by Minister of State Frits Korthals Altes and charged to report to the Minister of Home Affairs by September 2007, so that its recommendations could be implemented by 2010 or 2011. 15 Voting rights are recorded automatically when registered citizens turn 18 years. At some point before the election, municipalities establish who is entitled to vote on the basis of their population register. 16 Handelingen Tweede Kamer Regeling van werkzaamheden, TK 20, 1479e1483, 29 November 2006.
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Table 1 Results of parliamentary elections, Netherlands 2002e2006 Parties
Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) Labour Party (PvdA) Socialist Party (SP) People’s Party for Freedom & Democracy (VVD) Party for Freedom (PVV) Green Left (GroenLinks) Christian Union (CU) Democrats 66 (D66) Animal Party (PvdD) Political Reformed Party (SGP) (List Pim) Fortuyn Other parties Total
Political leader (2006)
2002
2003
2006
%
Seats
%
Seats
%
Seats
Jan Peter Balkenende Wouter Bos Jan Marijnissen Mark Rutte
27.9 15.1 5.9 15.4
43 23 9 24
28.6 27.3 6.3 17.9
44 42 9 28
26.5 21.2 16.6 14.7
41 33 25 22
Geert Wilders Femke Halsema Andre´ Rouvoet Alexander Pechtold Marianne Thieme Bas van der Vlies Olaf Stuger
e 7.0 2.5 5.1 e 1.7 17.0 2.3 99.9
e 10 4 7 e 2 26 2 150
e 5.1 2.1 4.1 0.4 1.6 5.7 1.3 100.0
e 8 3 6 0 2 8 0 150
5.9 4.6 4.0 2.0 1.8 1.6 0.2 1 100.1
9 7 6 3 2 2 0 0 150
Total valid votes Total blank and invalid Total electorate Turnout (all votes/electorate)
9,501,152 14,074 12,035,935 79.1
9,654,475 12,127 12,076,711 80.0
9,838,683 16,315 12,264,503 80.4
Sources: http://www.kiesraad.nl/verkiezingsuitslagen and http://www.nlverkiezingen.com/TK2002.html.
between the CDA and PvdA; in the event, the CDA took eight seats more than the PvdA. Compared with 2003, the PvdA’s losses were remarkably high. Also, practically all polls under-estimated the gains of the leftwing SP and the right-wing PVV. The SP more than doubled its seats in parliament, and the PVV entered parliament with nine seats. The orthodox-reformed CU won according to expectations, and the Animal Party took two seats. The losses of the VVD were expected, yet its result carried a major surprise: after the preferential votes had been counted, Rita Verdonk appeared to have won more votes than the party leader Mark Rutte, which was unprecedented.17 From a longer-term perspective, this election once more showed the high volatility that has characterized Dutch elections since the early 1990s. Again, the party landscape in 2006 was highly fragmented: the Second Chamber included 10 parliamentary parties, and the number of ‘effective parties’ stood 17 Rutte won 553,200 votes as against Verdonk’s 620,555. Whilst electors vote for a specific candidate on the party list, in practice a large majority pick the first candidate on the list. To distinguish them from votes for the party leader, votes for other candidates are called ‘preferential votes’. The number of preferential votes needed to overturn the party list order, which is determined by the party, has gradually declined over the past decades. It rarely happens that candidates gain a seat with preferential votes that they would not have gained otherwise. In 2006, the Turkey-born D66 candidate Fatma Koser Kaya, who won considerable support within the DutcheTurkish community, provided the only case.
at 5.5. As is evident from Fig. 1, there is a marked contrast between the extent of seat volatility pre- and post-1994. Moreover, the 2006 election revealed increasing polarization over the post-World War II period: the 17 seats for parties to the right of the VVD was second only to the 2002 election (when the LPF entered parliament); the 32 seats to the left of the PvdA was the highest since 1945. 6. Aftermath After the election, cabinet formation seemed extremely difficult. At least three parties were needed for a parliamentary majority, and neither the CDA nor PvdA e the largest parties although both had lost seats e had voiced a strong coalition preference before the election. Balkenende’s caretaker CDAeVVD government thus continued in office. Meanwhile, electoral instability in the Netherlands was highlighted again immediately after the cabinetformation process started. The new parliament voted for immediately suspending the eviction of illegal immigrants pending the emergence of a new government. Minister Verdonk refused to implement the decision. On 13 December 2006, the Tweede Kamer passed a vote of censure on her. In defiance of the unwritten constitutional rules, Verdonk was allowed to remain a cabinet minister, although she lost the Integration portfolio.
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 26 (2007) 797e837
20
By February 2007, the Netherlands had had a minority cabinet for over 7 months. The Second Chamber was fragmented and polarized; voting amongst the Dutch electorate had once more proven to be highly volatile. The largely positive message carried by the financial and economic indicators of the Dutch economy e the main target of the Balkenende-II cabinet in 2003 e had not been translated into electoral success.
10
References
60 50
Net # seat changes
837
40 30
0
1958 1963 1968 1973 1978 1983 1988 1993 1998 2003 2008
Year Fig. 1. Seat volatility in parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, 1959e2006. Source: Own calculations based on official election results (www.kiesraad.nl).
doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2007.02.002
Aarts, K., van der Kolk, H., 2006. Understanding the Dutch ‘No’: The Euro, the east and the elite. PS: Political Science and Politics 39, 243e246. Irwin, G.A., van Holsteyn, J.J.M., 2004. The 2002 and 2003 parliamentary elections in The Netherlands. Electoral Studies 23 (3), 551e557.