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Dutch politics
Since DorothyinAus asked for it in the other post, here's my explanation/take on it.
The country was (and is, compared to the PIIGS countries) very stable, we just had a kinda strange minority cabinet. The last elections really showed the country is completely divided and it was impossible to create a coalition with parties that were actually willing to work together.
So we got a minority coalition, which, in exchange for a number of policy changes, was helped out to a majority by a creepy racist dude's party.
Crappy racist dude lost 1 of his members, thus losing majority for the actual coalition.
Then the new budget needed to be made. Everyone in the coalition agreed that we needed to cut spending by a lot. Not only to keep the finances health, but also to comply with Europe's demands (not doing so brings you fines, and fines means even more spending cuts, vicious circle). Negotiations on the new budget between the 2 coalition parties and creepy racist dude took 7 weeks. On Friday they actually reached an agreement, but creepy racist dude said he needed to go back to his team to get approval.
While CRD approved all the singular issues they'd agreed on, he suddenly didn't agree to the total package anymore. He claimed it would hurt old people too much and he couldn't agree so he pulled the plug on his support.
What's funny is that CRD's voting record and party politics suggests far far worse changes for old people. While the proposed budget would cost old people 3 percent in their spending or something like that, in 2013, and then have them gain spending back in the years to follow, CRD's program will cut old people by 2 percent this year, 2 percent in 2013 and then still cut a little in the years to follow. Uhm, It hink that's worse, but whatever. He decided to pull the plug and only God knows what his true reasons behind it were. He's lying about it, that's for sure (and not only because he's a politician...)
Long story short. Our cabinet doesn't have a majority vote anymore, so they offered their resignation to the Queen, which means we'll have electios in a little while.
In the mean time the minority cabinet will stay on and try to figure out a budget that can pass with support on various issues from various parties, which will probably result in us overspending and getting the European fines and leaving the next coalition with an even harder task.
Funny thing is, the country is as divided politically as it was during the last elections, so we'll probably get a really really weird cabinet yet again after the elections. Looking at it now the 2 biggest parties will be the socialist party and the neo-liberal party (which, besides CRD is the furthest on the right.)
I'm so glad we just changed our cable package to now include the 24 hour politics channel - it'll be fun the coming time.
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What I'm looking forward to in 2012:
Eating our way through (northern) Italy on vacation
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home D
Re: Dutch politics
Thank you.
Both my trusted news networks here -- ABC and SBS -- only told the headline and I was really wondering what had happened. It seemed as though the PM and Cabinet just flipped and "took their ball and went home" for no real reason.
Yeah, I can imagine it seemed that way to the rest of the world. It was the non-coalition-but-help-them-to-majority partner that suddenly just up and left. We'll never know the true reason, as what he says is quite blatantly a lie. His was losing in the polls - big time. So I guess he just wanted to get out before he'd lose even more. We'll never know for sure though.
During the debate about it yesterday, when other parties asked him about his take on things, he just gave the weirdest answers.
At some point the socialist leader asked him "What you're saying now is that the other side's story is true, but your story is true as well and they're contradicting. That doesn't make sense, can you explain?" To which the weirdo answered "As I said, it's both true". So the Socialist guy goes on and says "If one guy says this chair is blue and the other calls it red, they can't both be right, can they?" To which the weirdo answered "Yes they can, I would probably call it purple, but sure, they can both be right."
All other MP's laughed really hard and then never asked him anything anymore and pretty much declared that they believed the cabinet and prime-minister's take on the story.
My food blog
What I'm looking forward to in 2012:
Eating our way through (northern) Italy on vacation
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home Dholy crap! He actually answered that on tv lmao That has to be the best politician answer ever!
Thank you NLFoodie for the updates.
We're not getting anything else about the situation, and I find it interesting how other countries political systems work -- and how in the end, they are just crazy as the US. And since the international news only reports the beginning and end of the story -- I really enjoy hearing what's really going on.
I read your report to DH, who follows politics like sport, and his comment was "Ahh, so that's where Herman Cain is hiding these days." I don't know how accurate that assessment is, but it did make me laugh.
@blueangel The debate was broadcasted live and he knew it. He just doesn't give a crap, he really doesn't. He won all his seats through immigrant-bashing and being nasty to everyone and anyone in general. He won all there is to win for him I guess.
@DorothyinAus What's interesting is that Dutch politics have always been pretty stable and moderate. Sure, cabinets fall once in a while, but it's never a huge deal. They'll disagree on one thing, we get new elections and they'll generally go on in the same manner as before, except we know have a decision on issue x that they fought about.
I absolutly believe in the strength of the Dutch system, where there has never been a 1-party majority. They ALWAYS have to make concessions and get closer to each other to govern. No huge massive changes (giving millionaires a tax break one year and hiking up their taxes as soon as the next guy is in office, only to change it around again immediately when the other party is in power. Such extremes just don't happen in NL as they ALWAYS need to cooperate.)
That said, the whole friggin country is so unbelievably divided ATM that it's hard to find a coalition of parties that will actually work well together, without having to have a "many-party-coalition" (4 or more) or letting the looney's play as well.
If there'd be elections slightly less than half of the votes (about 42 percent) will be divided between the outermost right and left wing non-looney parties. The next biggest party is Creepy racist dude, then the rest is divided by mild Christian, uber Christian (allow women, but shut down their website on Sundays), uber-uber Christian (don't allow women, close their website on Sundays, women are required to go out to vote and have to vote what their husband tells them to), green party, Animal Welfareparty, labour party, the moderate party, and the old people party.
And this has been going on and getting worse for the last 10 years. And honestly, I don't see it changing much in the very near future, unless the dutch people would suddenly start agreeing on stuff. Don't see that happening.
The good thing is that with those very short term coalitions, the country actually is pretty darn stable. Because as soon as the cabinet falls, all difficult decisions are officially declared controversial, which means that decisions will either be postponed, or (a committee) of members of parliament will together figure out a way to make it work to reach a very large majority for whatever they want to do. Large majority always means that it's not a huge big impact thing that's going to happen.
In the last 10 years, we've had 5 cabinets (usually a term is 4 years) - we're still one of the strongest countries within Europe, taking a HUGE part in keeping Greece (and other PIIGS countries) afloat. What's happening is sad and weird and sucks for those of us (like me) trying to sell a house. But really, it isn't all that terrible for the country.
My food blog
What I'm looking forward to in 2012:
Eating our way through (northern) Italy on vacation
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home D