Posts in the CU category.
Part of Parties.
OK, it’s now officially National Bash the Centre Parties Day. After Rutte’s attacks this morning it’s now the CU’s turn. In an interview CU party leader Rouvoet and parliamentary leader Slob mercilessly attacked Balkenende’s performance as prime minister. Meanwhile GL leader Halsema attacked both CDA and PvdA generically.
6 May 2010
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CDA, CU, D66, GL, Local elections, PVV, PvdA, PvdD, SGP, SP, ToN, VVD
In the past six weeks or so I haven’t been as active on this blog as I’d planned, but in the end this is a personal side project that I either have time for or don’t. Fortunately the past weeks were also relatively quiet on the political front. The local elections have run their course, and the parties are now gearing up for the general elections.
The campaign will start in two weeks or so, because late April/early May features a few Dutch-only holidays: Queen’s Day on 30 April, Remembrance Day on 4 May, and Liberation Day on 5 May. (The latter two both celebrate our liberation from the nazis in 1945). Besides, there’s a two-week school holiday right now, and many voters are abroad on some beach or so. Little sense in starting up your campaign now.
30 March 2010
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CDA, CU, D66, Immigrants, Minor parties, PVV, PvdD, SGP, Van der Staaij, Wilders
Some small fry from the past ten days that might be of interest to political observers:
The new Politieke Barometer poll has landed, and I’ve added it to the polls page.
Not much to see; one seat from PVV to VVD, one from CDA to CU, one from GL to SP. The CDA is clearly not yet done with its slide, although the momentum has lessened. Conversely, we might see a PVV slide momentum building up. The SP seems to have hit the low point; this is the first time it has won a seat in any poll this year. The centre-left coalition lost one seat and goes back to 75.
I expect the polls to change only gradually in the next few weeks, unless something dramatic happens. The PvdA’s reward for blowing up government has now been accounted for; it’s the other parties’ move.
I do expect a few trends to surface. Has Wilders’s inevitable slide down to about 12-15 seats started yet? Will the CDA go down even more or stabilise? Will the left block win more seats from the right, or has equilibrium been reached?
An extra poll tells us something about how Dutch voters select a party. This topic has been discussed in the comments recently, and it’s nice to be able to show some figures.
The Dutch nine-to-twelve-party system is sometimes hard to understand for foreigners; especially when the small parties come into play. Therefore I’m running a mini-series that treats all eleven parties that stand a decent chance of getting seats in the upcoming elections. We’ll go from largest to smallest.
Today we’ll continue with the CU.
2 March 2010
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Balkenende, Bos, CDA, CU, PVV, PvdA, Rouvoet, ToN, VVD, Van Geel, Verhagen, Wilders
Some small fry that might be of interest to political observers:
28 February 2010
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Balkenende, Bos, CU, Cohen, D66, Eurlings, Halsema, Immigrants, Kant, Minor parties, PVV, Pechtold, Polls, Rouvoet, Rutte, Verdonk, Verhagen, Wilders
Some small fry that might be of interest to political observers:
25 February 2010
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Balkenende, CDA, CU, Eurlings, Rouvoet
Some small fry that might be interesting to political observers:
The Balkenende IV government (i.e. the fourth government that Balkenende (CDA) was prime minister of) was formed three years ago and consists of centre-right CDA (christian-democrats), centre-left PvdA (Labour), and orthodox-protestant left-leaning CU (Union of Christians). Yesterday evening the PvdA ministers resigned over a conflict about the continuing Dutch military presence in the Afghan province of Uruzgan.
In a week and a half local elections will be held, and the PvdA was slated to lose a lot of seats everywhere. PvdA party leader and finance minister Bos clearly hopes to stem the electoral tide by his resignation, and he might well be right.
This is the political blog of Peter-Paul Koch, mobile platform strategist, consultant, and trainer, in Amsterdam. It’s a hobby blog where he follows Dutch politics for the benefit of those twelve foreigners that are interested in such matters, as well as his Dutch readers.
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