@latecomer91364 or rather very late comer!

Do you know your PvdA from your PvdD? Or your SP from your SGP? Let us unravel the acronyms of the Dutch political parties.

Before considering the political parties in the Netherlands, it’s helpful to know how the county’s overall political system works.

The Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy.

It has a Head of State, who is the monarch. Currently this is King Willem-Alexander, who ascended the throne in 2013 following his mother’s abdication. The Dutch Head of State has ceremonial powers only.

Then there’s the Prime Minister, who is currently Mark Rutte. He is the head of the Dutch government, and has been in power since 2010.

The Staten-Generaal
The Dutch parliament, which meets in the Binnehof in The Hague, is known as the States-General (Staten-Generaal).

It’s made up of two chambers. The upper, First Chamber is called the Senate (Eerst Kamer der Staten-Generaal) and has 75 members elected by 12 provincial councils.

The lower, more influential Second Chamber is called the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal) and has 150 members.

The population elects these men and women normally every four years, using a proportional representation system (which means even small parties can win a seat).

Unlike the UK and the US, voters vote for a party rather than an individual candidate, and representatives don’t represent individual districts but the country as a whole.

A multi-party system
There is a multi-party system, but since 1918, no one party has ever won enough seats to win an outright majority. As such, governments are usually formed by coalitions of two or more political parties.

The main parties are the VVD, PvdA and (in terms of membership) the CDA, but there are many smaller parties who have also won seats in the House of Representatives.

In recent years, parties have become less centrist and more polarised to the extreme left and right of the political spectrum, as Dutch society becomes increasingly divided over social issues like immigration, the integration of minorities, and the European Union.

Dutch voters are considered to be among the most volatile in Western Europe, often deciding who they’re going to vote for at the last minute.

Currently, the Dutch government is a coalition of four parties; the VVD, CDA, D66 and CU – this has been the case since the last general election in 2017.

Political parties in the Netherlands
So, as there are so many important players, here’s who’s who in Dutch politics:

VVD
The Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD) or People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, was founded in 1948, supported by the non-religious middle classes.

It’s a centre-right, conservative liberal party, led by Mark Rutte, with an emphasis on private enterprise, the free market, fiscal responsibility, democracy, international co-operation and a welfare state.

Over the last few years, the party has shifted more and more to the right, placing added importance on fiscal austerity measures and welfare cuts.

The VVD secured 33 seats in the 2017 election, and it remains the Netherlands’ largest political party.

PvdA
PvdA stands for Partij van de Arbeid, or the Labour Party. Led by Lodewijk Asscher, the PvdA is a social-democratic, centre-left party founded in 1946 with the merger of several smaller parties, combining socialist ideas with liberal and humanist ideas.

The PvdA went on to build a welfare state. Despite the name, the PvdA has no formal links to trade unions although many of their politicians have come from the FNV, a federation of trade unions in the Netherlands.

The party lost a significant amount of seats in the 2017 election, making it the country’s seventh-largest party.

SP
SP stands for the Socialistische Partij or Socialist Party. When it was founded in 1972, it was the Communist Party of the Netherlands, but in 1991 it changed direction to become a less radical, democratic socialist party – a move ‘from socialism to social-ism’.

Led by Lilian Marijnissen, the SP’s vision of society is based on the values of human dignity, equality and solidarity. They are active in campaigns against high rents and poor working conditions, and for fair pay, good health care, opportunities for all and protecting the environment.

In the 2017 election, the SP lost a seat bringing its total to 14.

PVV
Partij voor de Vrijheid, the Party for Freedom, founded in 2006 by the controversial leader Geert Wilders, is a right wing party combining economic liberalism with anti-immigration policies.

Wilders’ own views once led to him being denied entry to the UK on the grounds that his presence could ‘inflame community tensions and lead to inter-faith violence’ and he was tried (and later acquitted) for ‘incitement to hatred and discrimination’ in Amsterdam.

However, the party won nine seats in 2006, and in 2010, while not officially part of the VVD and CDA coalition government, it maintained a formal alliance with the cabinet and was involved in policy discussions.

When the PVV walked out of talks about austerity measures, it forced a general election in the autumn of 2012.

In the most recent election in 2017, the PVV won 20 seats, making it the second largest party in Parliament – but all other major parties had already said they would not form a coalition with the PVV.

CDA
The Christen-Democratische Appel, or Christian Democratic Appeal party, is led by Sybrand van Haersma Bumaand, and has formed part of almost all the ruling coalitions in the Netherlands since 1945.

Despite its name, it has both Christian and non-Christian supporters. It’s a centre-right party but with some centre-left leanings.

Just after World War II, the Christian democrats (at that time, three separate parties) were winning more than half of all the votes (and seats) in elections but over time, its support has waned.

In the 2017 elections, the CDA gained six seats to become the third-largest party.

Democraten 66 (D66)
Democraten 66 (D66) is a progressive and social-liberal party with roots in the leftist liberal party Vrijzinnig Democratische Bond (190-46), which was formed in 1966 by dissident liberals and social democrats.

Led by Rob Jetten, its guiding principles are: power and freedom of the individual; international co-operation; rewarding performance and sharing wealth; sustainability and care of the environment; and civil rights for all, regardless of belief, religion, sexual orientation, political views or ethnicity.

ChristenUnie (CU)

ChristenUnie or Christian Union CU, led by Gert-Jan Segers, is a socially conservative Christian party that bases its policies on the bible (although it’s not as extreme as the Reformed Political Party).

It holds conservative views on ethical issues like abortion, gay marriage and euthanasia but is more akin to left-wing parties on other issues, such as welfare, immigration and the environment. It was founded in 2000.

Groen Links

Groen Links means Green Left and their name sums up neatly what the party stands for: ‘a sustainable and ecologically balanced environment’ while protecting the ‘most disadvantaged in society’.

The party was founded in 1990 with the merger of four smaller radical left wing groups. The current leader is Jesse Klaver.

SGP
Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij (SGP), the Reformed Political Party led by Kees van der Staaji, is an extremely religious Protestant party with conservative views.

The party’s aim is for the Netherlands to be ‘reigned entirely on the basis of the ordinances of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures’.

It is anti-Europe, anti-abortion, anti-gay and even opposes feminism, believing that ‘man is the head of the woman’, and it does not allow women to stand for election.

The party has seats in both chambers of the Dutch parliament (although it refuses to join any cabinet and uses its seats purely to express its principles) and several hundred at local level.

PvdD
The PvdD, not to be confused with the PvdA, stands for Partij voor de Dieren, the Party for the Animals.

Established in 2002, this animal rights and environmental party led by Marianne Thieme has seats in the Dutch parliament and Senate, as well as in numerous provincial councils.

Your welcome......there are other even smaller parties like Denk and 50+ bu this is a start for your small brain to comprehend!

Thinskin

 

@latecomer91364

You might also want to read........

The Polder Model in Dutch Economic and Environmental Planning

Yda Schreuder University of Delaware

or anything else on the polder model.......that's how we manage to balance the budget each year and keep the water away.......hint it involves all involved parties talking to each other and reaching concnsus and the beauty of a coalition government is that it stops vested interest trying to get rich quick at the expense of the population............a somewhat foreigh concept to the US right I grant you!

An exerpt......

In an attempt to solve some serious economic and environmental problems, the Netherlands has embarked on an unique experiment over the past few decades. Based on a tradition of cooperation, consensus building, and democratic self-rule, the Dutch have revitalized a corporatist approach to economic and environmental planning. They refer to the polder model to describe the particular characteristics of this approach. Although the polder model is rooted in the past (i.e., the Golden Age of the 17th-century Dutch Republic), its more recent application in planning efforts finds its start with the Wassenaar Accord in economic planning in 1982. A similar approach was used in environmental planning with the introduction of the first National Environmental Policy Plan in 1989. The key feature of the environmental plan is a covenant between business and government. In this article, the author compares the application of the polder model in both areas and concludes that there are serious challenges ahead for its survival. The article attempts to assess whether the model would work in the United States and why the approach used by the Dutch is the favored approach of Environmental Protection Agency chief Christie Whitman.

Give it a read.....

Thinskin

 

Thinskin, seriously, thanks for this. It is both educational and enlightening. And I am extremely impressed with your government and politics.

And let's compare and contrast with the US shall we?

‘VOTER FRAUD ALL OVER!’ Trump erupts with all-caps rant as hopes of overturning election crash and burn

*This happens a lot and we even see it around here sometimes. On any other day Trump would be calling it the "failing New York Times" and claiming you can't ever believe a fucking word they say. But let them publish something Trump likes and all of a sudden the NYT is the gospel.

**This is another perfect example of in order to be a Trump supporter you must simply suspend disbelief. Any fool can see Trump's claim makes no sense at all. The reality is Joe Biden has close to 6 million more votes than Trump. But Trump supporters must ignore that reality and praise and support their Chosen One. Which makes them cult followers.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/vo...hopes-of-overturning-election-crash-and-burn/

 

Nice opinion piece in the Guardian on the lies of Trumpism and the fools that believe them!

Trump’s legacy is the plague of extreme lies. Truth-based media is the vaccine

The toxic politics of conspiracies and lies did not start four years ago and will live on beyond Trump. But we can protect ourselves and reward the truth.

Normal presidents start to think about their legacy long before the final weeks of their time inside the West Wing. But if there’s anything we have learned from the lab rat experiment of the last four years, it’s that Donald Trump is entirely abnormal.

Whether he knows it or not – and all the evidence suggests he knows nothing worth knowing – Trump’s legacy is the toxic politics of lies: a permanent campaign of fabrications and falsehoods.

No matter that he clearly lost the 2020 election by landslide margins in the electoral college and the popular vote. What matters is the never-ending sense of grievance that someone or something, somewhere – liberals, minorities, judges, reporters – have conspired to wrong Trump and oppress his long-suffering fans.

This is the narrative of the fascist story forever: you are not to blame for your suffering because it was contrived by others – immigrants and outsiders, wielding wealth and power in the shadows.

Trump did not invent this story and likely has no idea where it came from, other than his own obvious genius. He did not invent the notion that brazen lies can buy you a delusional base. He wasn’t the first to put the bull in the bully pulpit of the presidency.

But he was the first to run a White House like a Joe McCarthy witch hunt, unleashing social media to cower an entire party into a posture of pure cowardice.

Trump’s Republicans will be with us long after the soon-to-be-ex-president succumbs to the overdue tax bills of the IRS, the calling-in of his massive property debts, and the long-brewing fraud cases of New York state’s prosecutors.

These Trumpist Republicans are his legacy, as much as a supreme court stacked against the popular vote, science and all good sense.

They are people like Elise Stefanik in upstate New York. Stefanik is a Harvard graduate whose career began alongside Republican moderates such as Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor, and Josh Bolten, Bush’s second term chief of staff. But now she’s a full Trumpista, mimicking his campaign style of insults and defending him through his impeachment for corruptly twisting national security to dig up dirt on Joe Biden.

They are people like Tom Cotton, the Arkansas senator and 2024 presidential hopeful. Cotton is already campaigning against immigrants and says he’ll oppose Biden’s nominee for homeland security because he was part of a giant conspiracy of Democratic donors to sell green cards to the Chinese. In fact the conspiracy involved just three cases, and is the same cash-for-citizenship program that triggered investigations into Trump’s son-in-law and confidant Jared Kushner. But why spoil the soundbite?

They are people like Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, who spent most of the 2020 campaign sounding like a Trump clone but has now disappeared from public view, even as he continues to stop local officials from enforcing mask-wearing to slow the spread of the pandemic.

This political plague of extreme lies did not start four years ago.

George W Bush and Karl Rove won the 2004 election by suggesting that Democrats would open the nation’s doors to Islamist terrorists. That was before the second term was demolished by their own nativists who sunk their plans for immigration reform. Those anti-immigrant forces found a natural home in the so-called Tea party that denied Barack Obama’s citizenship, and later populated Trump’s White House and justice department.

The good news is that we already have a vaccine. It’s the best way to protect yourself from demagogues, deception and delusions. It separates fact from fiction. It recalls recent history to place the present in some kind of meaningful context.

It’s called the news media, and you can help. You can be an informed citizen by reading established news media first, not your social feed or email. You can share stories from the truth-tellers who have no problem calling out the liars.

You can even pay for the truth that journalists deliver every day, no matter how much sewage pours through social media feeds and email inboxes. It doesn’t cost much when you think about how much we’ve paid during these last four years of chaos and corruption.

We can’t stop the Trumpistas from Trumping. We can’t stop the rest of them from pretending like they were never big Trump fans in the first place.

But we can stop them running away from the facts or their record. We can remind them how they failed to stop Trump’s corruption and this murderous pandemic.

We can stop them skewing the political spectrum so far that the Biden team tacks to center ground that is already six steps to the right.

We can hold the new White House to its promises at the same time as holding the old Republican party to what used to be its principles.

But this work comes at a price. Back in the late 19th century, the French writer Gustave Le Bon wrote that “the crowd” has never rewarded the truth.

“They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them,” he wrote. “Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.”

You can reward the truth if you want to. It’s one of the best ways to demolish the legacy of the last four years.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...extreme-lies-truth-based-media-is-the-vaccine

Thinskin

 

Repukes

 

This is really good. Hypocrisy that just glares like an ant under a magnifying glass is a Republican constant.

 

Trump and Kushner had a chance to buy extra doses of a vaccine that's 95% effective and passes multiple times. And now it will be June or July before they can supply.

Trump and the WH are now trying to lie their way out of that saying it never happened which is just stupid and ignorant because there are multiple people from both the company and the Trump administration confirming it.

 

He could try to bully the European part of the company to suppy the US first but what happens when europe does not give export permission. Send the USAF to bomb the factory ?if we can not have nor will you he will say

 

Congress needs to step up and take action to break up the social media giants and regulate them like news media. It is dangerous and destructive to just sit there and let people lie. And that is especially true for Trump where they are too fucking cowardly to enforce their own rules,

Twitter Slaps Harsher Restrictions on Trump’s Nutso Morning Tweet Storm

https://www.thedailybeast.com/twitt...-on-trumps-nutso-morning-tweet-storm?ref=home

 

Trump has now been awarded "Lie of the Year" for 2017, 2019, and 2020. That's three out of four years in office.

Trump’s ‘downplay and denial’ of COVID-19 named ‘Lie of the Year’ by top fact checkers

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/12/tr...9-named-lie-of-the-year-by-top-fact-checkers/

 

Trump is warned for the second time not to destroy White House records......meanwhile the shredders keep working.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...test-twitter-b1774755.html?page=2#post-395998

Thinskin

 

The President of the USA really puts the hours in doesn't he?



Thinskin

 

You throwing alot of weight behind a leftist rag opinion piece? and except a rational reply?...c'mon man, ya gotta do better than that.

 

Whatever it started as, its a leftist rag today.

How do we know that?
Thinskin quotes it almost as often as we see wrong story being pasted.

 

As opposed to your bare faced lies without any link whatsoever.......or perhaps a 20 year old reference.

Thinskin

 

Personal attack dismissed.

 

hypocrisy defined