So before it falls, let’s quickly describe the Rutte government now that it’s been in power for about a year and a half. The most important take-away for foreigners is that Geert Wilders does not sit in government. Instead he promised ... gedoogsteun.

We’ve run into a serious translation problem. I have found no directly equivalent English term for gedoogsteun. Still, some help from my Twitter followers unearthed the fact that both Canada and New Zealand have had a similar construct, but no specific name for it. Denmark, too, has made extensive use of gedoogsteun, but I don’t speak Danish and I doubt they translated their name for it into English.

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Political custom dictates that just after the elections all party leaders deplore the fact that the forming of a stable coalition is so very very difficult. Usually that means that they can’t (easily) form the coalition of their choice, but in general they are able to find a reasonable option within two to three weeks (although the formal negotiations take longer).

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Some minor points:

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Yesterday the leaders of the eight largest parties debated on the economy. It was a tightly-led debate with a distinctly less weird format than usual, and it allowed all eight participants to shine a few times — or fail to do so, but that was their own fault.

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Sunday I watched the first debate in this election cycle, and here’s my report. It was slated as a “prime minister debate,” and as a result only four party leaders participated: Cohen (PvdA), Balkenende (CDA), Rutte (VVD), and Wilders (PVV).

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Where Wilders’s PVV has been a glowing example of disciplined behaviour until now, with no other PVV politician even hinting at criticism of party leader Wilders, during an interview last Sunday the second-best-known PVV MP, Hero Brinkman, called for more internal party democracy.

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Peil.nl had published a new poll in which respondents were asked for their wishes and expectations regarding coalitions and prime ministers. There are a few nuggets in here.

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It’s time to return to the local coalition negotiations in Rotterdam, Almere, and Den Haag. All three are unusual in that a large right-wing party (Leefbaar Rotterdam and twice Wilders’s PVV) challenges the might of the local PvdA.

Besides, monitoring these negotiations will be a useful practice run for June and July, when this blog will mainly discuss the national coalition negotiations.

Today we close off with Den Haag.

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This is just in: Wilders said that his proposed ban on Islamic headscarves in public buildings is in fact negotiable. He’s clearly feeling the heat and is doing one major step back.

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Some small fry from the past ten days that might be of interest to political observers:

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This is just in: Wilders will not be traveling to the US to attend the premiere of a film made about him, because the chairman of the funding foundation has made severe anti-gay remarks in the past.

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Oh my, the new Peil.nl poll has landed two days early. I’ve added it to the polls page.

The timing is surprising, the content isn’t. Basically it confirms Thursday’s poll in that the PvdA wins five seats, of which one comes from the right, two from D66, and one each from GL and SP. The centre-left PvdA+CDA+D66 coalition does not yet have a majority in this poll, but does win two seats.

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The new Politieke Barometer poll has landed, and I’ve added it to the polls page.

The PvdA won seven seats, and that’s really a lot for just one week. Even in my dampened-down average the PvdA is now four seats larger than the CDA. It’s clear that the appointment of Cohen has been an excellent move.

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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 Geert Wilders’s PVV. It is by far the longest party profile I’ve written or will write.

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I’ve been neglecting the recent polls a bit. Each week, Peil.nl (Maurice de Hond) and the Politieke Barometer publish their ongoing general election polls (on Sunday and Thursday, respectively), and this are obviously prime data sources for any Dutch political blog.

Reason I’ve been neglecting them is that I was working on a polls and coalition overview, which is now finally finished. In the future I can give a brief overview of every new poll and refer you to this page for the details, as well as the poll trends.

The page also contains a coalition creation game, where you can try your hand at forming a stable majority coalition, and find out why it takes so bloody long.

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More details about several unfolding political stories: the prime-minister race, Balkenende’s continuing stability problems, a PvdA+CDA coalition, new SP party leader Roemer, and the local government negotiations in Almere and Rotterdam.

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This is just in: Wilders is in the UK to once again try to show his “film” about the deplorable results of Islam in the House of Lords.

He was greeted by a demonstration of opponents, as well as by the cheers of about a hundred members of the “English Defence League,” a group I’ve never heard of. His formal host is Lord Pearson.

I just wish foreigners would not meddle in our politics. It’s complicated enough without giving Wilders a Europe-wide forum for his message.

Any UK readers who can shed light on the EDL or Lord Pearson?

On Wednesday Dutch voted for their local councils, and the result is interesting. SP leader Kant resigns, Wilders’s PVV the largest party in one city, PvdA and CDA lose, D66 wins.

Before we continue, one housekeeping note: I will be away for the weekend, and there will be no updates to this blog. Publication will resume on Monday.

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Some small fry that might be of interest to political observers:

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Yesterday the leaders of CDA, PvdA, VVD, PVV, SP, and D66 debated each other on TV, and continued on the Internet. I watched both so you don’t have to.

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Some small fry that might be of interest to political observers:

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Oh my, Peil.nl has published more polls, and they consistently show that Bos’s gamble is still paying off.

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Yesterday the first poll (PDF) since the fall of government was released, and broadly speaking it shows that Bos’s gamble is paying off — for now. The Dutch voters agree with him on both the policy and the politics side, and the PvdA is gaining seats once more.

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