Dutch Coalition Collapse

Migration broke the camel's back, but there is a lot more to Rutte's demise

So last Friday it finally happened, the ill-fated fourth coalition government of PM Rutte, a coalition of four distinct parties fell apart and the Dutch are going back to the ballot box in November. The straw that broke the camel’s back was migration, a crisis that has been enveloping The Netherlands year after year. By taking a hardline position the man who has been PM for thirteen years alienated two of his more left-leaning coalition partners and everything fell apart quickly after that.

But there’s more to it than meets the eye. It was an easily avoidable crisis - dealing with new rules around migrant family reunification - and the smart money was on Rutte having engineered this crisis to position himself as being tough on migration in order to secure a possible next election win. Things escalated over the weekend as this analysis got traction and the opposition threatened to immediately terminate Rutte as PM, denying him the chance to run again or even enjoy a graceful exit after the November election. Boxed in by the dynamics of his own making, he stepped backed today, paving the way for new leadership in his party and the country at large.

According to the polls the other large party in new elections would be the brand new Farmers Citizen Movement, who together with Rutte’s free-market liberal party under a new leader could potentially shape a drastic and highly necessary change in Dutch politics. Rutte’s coalition legacy is a long list of mismanaged and even deeply shameful files:

Farmers - the plans to regulate nitrogen emissions by scaling back and reducing the Dutch agricultural sector have been highly controversial. The heavy handed government approach sparked massive protests, violence, a divided political landscape and now even a rapidly growing political party that is closely aligned with farmer interests. Uncertainty rules for all parties involved.

Child Care Allowance Scandal - one of the most egregious examples of a modern bureaucracy cracking down with algorithms on the weakest in society. The result: broken families, suicides, piles of debt and thousands of victims scarred and traumatized for life. After many years this is still not resolved and while the government has finally taken some accountability over this it has been often half-hearted and solutions poorly managed. The few parliamentarians who did their job by asking the right questions and criticizing were often sidelined and intimidated.

Gas Extraction in Groningen - extremely profitable for the Dutch state and oil companies, but not exactly a winner for the thousands of residents whose houses were destroyed by tremors caused by gas extraction. Again, it took ages before the government took action and responsibility, slow compensation processes and deeply frustrated residents.

Corona Policies - questionable lockdown policies, shady deals over mask procurement and lingering questions around vaccine implementation. A parliamentary inquiry was about to get underway, but somehow the coalition’s parties managed to get it sidetracked and postponed indefinitely. Many unanswered questions abound and are still hanging as a dark cloud over the political landscape.

Migration - as a small, overpopulated nation with a housing sector in disarray, The Netherlands is not exactly the best destination for political and economic refugees, whose growing numbers broke down the system last summer, making for depressing scenes at migration reception centres. Unworthy of a civilized nation to simultaneously betray the needy seeking help, but also its own citizens who have rightly demanded a better approach.

Crime - the Dutch are sliding into narco-state territory. A murdered lawyer, a famous journalist killed and the crown princess resigned to basically home detention given numerous threats to kidnap her coming from powerful drug gangs. The nation has always boasted superior infrastructure, a system now being taken advantage of by highly sophisticated drug cartels while the criminal justice system is struggling to catch up.

Housing Affordability - not dissimilar to any other western democracy, but for the small nation which effectively is a city-state the room to build and grow is limited. The entire nitrogen emission saga has affected building and put real pressure on new construction, the government has pushed the issue with the farmers hard so that a new emission scheme would also enable new building permits. Cynics say the attack on farmers is to gain access to more land. In any case both new construction and a resolution to the farmer issues are stalled.

For each of these items any government in a functioning democracy would have had to face decisive non-confidence motions and a rightful end. Not so with Rutte’s coalitions. He has been able to manipulate - often obfuscating the truth - his journey so cleverly that he has managed to set the record for a Dutch prime minster in office. But the legacy is one of distrust, disconnect and discontent across Dutch society. Not unlike France, the successive crises of faltering economic and climate policies, pandemic and migration have undermined the fair and collaborative state the Dutch have enjoyed since the end of World War II.

So where to next? Many in The Netherlands have long been arguing for a female prime minister, something the Dutch never had. That moment may be arriving now. The name most rumoured to take Rutte’s slot to lead his party is that of Dilan Yeşilgöz, the current justice minister who has a Turkish-Kurdish background and is seen as a tough, slightly right-of-center centrist. The other one is of course Caroline van der Plas, the leader of the farmer’s movement who is equally seen as being somewhat on the right side, but able to play in the center and open to collaborate. In the Dutch political system they could work together to build a new and fresh coalition to clean up the rubble left behind by Rutte. This renewal could offer a template for other equally challenged democracies like the US, Canada and the UK.

The core lesson out of all of this is that political leaders who hang on to power for too long, using whatever tools they have at their disposal, will eventually fall, at least in functioning democracies. The weird irony is that Mark Rutte who thought on Friday that he had once again outsmarted everyone by engineering a cabinet crisis had to face reality on Monday and accept his political demise. Maybe he subconsciously knew all along that the game was up.