The following article is adapted from a series of translations from the Dutch media that was posted at Gates of Vienna on July 10. Readers who are interested in the details of the political crisis in the Netherlands will want to read the whole article. The text of the following summary owes a great debt to our Flemish correspondent VH, who provided the original translations and commentary.
Geert Wilders is the leader of the Partij Voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom, the PVV), the only mainstream political party in the Netherlands which is opposed to further Muslim immigration and is resisting the Islamization of the country. In last month’s general elections the PVV surged from nine to twenty-four seats, thus emerging as the third-largest party in parliament. In the wake of the unseemly political machinations over the formation of a new government, the PVV has since become the most popular party in the country, and would be the largest party in parliament if elections were held again today.
If the Netherlands were a normal parliamentary democracy, the PVV would now be part of the governing coalition and would hold seats in the cabinet. But the Netherlands is not a normal parliamentary democracy. The elite oligarchy that runs Dutch political affairs is absolutely determined that an “Islamophobe” like Mr. Wilders be kept from power, and that the PVV be excluded from any governing coalition.
Any other configuration of parties would be acceptable. An unholy alliance of the “conservative” VVD and the Communists is just fine, so long as Geert Wilders and the PVV are not in the resulting government.
The role of the informateur has been crucial in the attempted coup d’état against the PVV. An informateur is an official go-between appointed by the monarch after an election to discuss possible coalitions with various political parties. Normally the king or queen appoints two or more informateurs representing diverse political interests, and receives their recommendations with an eye to choosing the best possible compromise among competing factions.
Queen Beatrix has thrown away this time-hallowed democratic process by appointing a single informateur, Tjeenk Willink. The Queen carries an ill-concealed distaste for Geert Wilders, and Mr. Willink is thought to be well-disposed to carry out the Queen’s wishes — some have even called him her “lackey”.
The result? An immediate recommendation for a “Purple-plus” cabinet composed of the VVD (center-right) and three left-wing parties, the PvdA (Labour Party, Socialists), D66 (center-left, pro-EU bureaucracy and anti-Wilders), and GreenLeft (Communists, extreme left-wing environmentalists). If this oddball combination fails to gel, the fallback solution will probably be a coalition composed of the VVD, the PvdA, and the CDA (Christian Democrats).
In any case, Geert Wilders will be kept out of the government, thereby sparing the country from his “Islamophobic” policies. Furthermore, if any unwelcome proposals by the PVV receive a majority in parliament, Mr. Willink asserts that they
…shall be put aside when the principles of the constitutional democracy, the international position of the Netherlands, or the financial principles of the policy are at stake.
That is, the will of the people, as expressed by democratically-elected representatives in parliament, is to be overridden by the ruling oligarchs in the interests of “constitutional democracy”.
Some constitution. Some democracy.
Such is the current state of democratic governance in the Netherlands.
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