Dutch election: Will voters plump for change during a pandemic?
The fallout from a political scandal, an ongoing global pandemic, an economic downturn, simmering civil unrest: any one of these challenges would make for a fraught election campaign.
But in the run-up to this week’s national election (COVID-19 has seen voting spread out over three days, from March 15-17), political parties in the Netherlands were confronted with the reality of all four happening at once.
Unease at scandals and ongoing social issues aside, the Dutch electorate appears to be keenly aware of the need for stability during a time of crisis that is gripping the whole world, not least the Netherlands.
Some, though, are concerned with the country’s direction and are railing against what they see as regressive measures to combat the spread of coronavirus.
In short, while the result is broadly expected to be an endorsement of continuity, some are seeing Wednesday’s pandemic poll as a bellwether election for other major elections across Europe later this year.
The resignation of a government just months before a scheduled election would normally raise eyebrows in normal times, much less during a national crisis.
In January, however, a scandal quickly engulfed the cabinet and Rutte’s previous coalition partners, the Labour Party (PvdA), and precipitated the fall of the government.
The “kinderopvangtoeslagaffaire”, or the child benefits scandal, has been something of an open sore for the Rutte government, and one which will ultimately cost taxpayers €500 million in compensation to those impacted by it.
Between 2013 and 2019, the tax authorities wrongly accused over 26,000 families of welfare fraud, demanding repayment of thousands of euros and plunging many into crippling debt.
Lodewijk Asscher, the leader of the PvdA and social affairs minister during the period in question, resigned on January 14 following the release of a damning parliamentary report.
Deeply divided on how to respond, Rutte’s government resigned the following day and formed a caretaker administration.
Coming to power in 2010 as the lijsttrekker – the lead candidate – for the VVD party, Rutte became both the first liberal prime minister in nearly a century and also the second youngest holder of the office in the country’s history.
During his decade-long tenure as premier, he has been at the head of the shortest-lived government in the postwar period as well as one of the only ones to last its full four-year term.
“Rutte is considered by an important part of the population as a nice person and good manager,” Dr Jelle van Buuren, an associate professor of politics at the University of Leiden, told Euronews.
