[Thanks to Tangent Reality]

Knowing where political parties obtain their money is a fairly essential aspect of democracy. Transparency for financial transactions prevents parties from becoming trojan horses for hidden interests able to pay for political influence.

On Wednesday and Thursday this week the parliament discussed a proposal for a new law that would require parties to declare any donation of above 1000 Euro in their annual report, and any donation above 4500 Euro must be listed with the name of the donator. Failure to do so would mean a fine of 25,000 Euro. The consequences for Wilders’ PVV would be considerable if this went through, because the party has from day one wanted to avoid any insight into its financial affairs.

To receive state funding like the other political parties, the Freedom party would need party members, and it only has two: Wilders himself, and the Friends of the PVV foundation. In this way Wilders sticks by his aim to avoid any connection with the Dutch state. He also avoids any annual financial reports. And he maintains complete control over everything. But to do so, he needs to haul his money from somewhere else. And as everyone knows, much of it comes from abroad – right-wingers in the US, and probably Israel. There have been plenty of reports on this, some of which were compiled here on the Bureau in June 2010.

“The proposal for a law on the financial support for political parties has a long history, too long in the opinion of my party.” So spoke Tofik Dibi of GreenLeft in the debate yesterday, and his view coincided with the PvdA, who also want to ban all donations that come from abroad (nice twist too - the Communist party was villified for getting money from Moscow, so whats the difference with a party getting money from the crazy US Right?). But the show was stolen by the Freedom Party’s Hero Brinkman, who held forth against this ‘anti-PVV law’ and against a wave of critique from all the other parties for around an hour. Brinkman, who is known as the ‘democrat’ within the PVV for various efforts to develop a more open party structure, used a string of interesting arguments in response:

1) The proposed law originated as a move by former Interior Minister Guusje ter Horst to demand transparency from Pim Fortuyn’s LPF back in 2002. Once the LPF declined in numbers and was less of a threat, the law was shelved. Now that the PVV has become one of the top three parties, the law has been revived. In other words – whenever a threatening political movement rises in power to challenge the established order, this law gets pulled out.

2) The law would require all PVV donators to be made public, and this could bring them in danger – Not for nothing does Wilders wander around with heavy protection every day. The law would therefore actually be undemocratic because it would scare away Dutch individuals who would otherwise support the PVV.

3) According to Brinkman, only nine democracies provide state money for political parties, so the Netherlands already belongs to a minority of states. (needless to say, he didn’t name the other eight, and one wonders if he knows what he is talking about here).

4) The fact that the Freedom party might obtain its money from the US is nobody else’s business.

5) Final point – the new law is so full of holes that it will be possible to find the gaps in it anyway. For instance, money coming in to local branches of a political party will not have to be declared, offering a large and obvious loophole.

Obviously, for any normal politician it would have take around ten minutes to outline these points. For Brinkman, however, this was a useful stage for a tirade against all things leftist and CDA-ish, stringing out his defence of the wonderful contribution that the PVV makes to Dutch democracy so much that the questioners had to repeat their enquiries more than once in order to get an answer out of him. Dibi’s protests that the law reflects the anti-corruption stance of Dutch foreign policy – which the PVV supports – went nowhere against Brinkman’s determination to avoid real debate on the issue. For anyone who wants a taste, the debate can be found here.

Looks like a solid majority in parliament want to pass the law. Is it anti-PVV? It is an important move to standardise Dutch politics by getting everyone to play by the same rules - and there is only one loser, as the Dutch press have made clear. Private financial arrangements are the life and soul of the whole Wilders operation. He has to be able to declare a distance between himself and ‘the state’ (i.e. established politics), otherwise his whole carefully constructed image collapses.

Brinkman’s Pyrotechnics included the announcement that the PVV would find ways around the law if necessary, a sign of the way ahead. But the law could just add extra weight to the apparent decline in Wilders’ fortunes shown by recent opinion polls. When it comes to the effects of economic crisis, will the voter after all choose the Socialists over the PVV? Maybe….

[Results of an online poll run by Spits, after PVV MP Fleur Agema had suggested in 2009 that police should shoot at rioting (Moroccan) youth]

In this day and age, we are (unfortunately) becoming used to the dodgy wheeling and dealing of elected politicians and the way they ‘bend’ the law for their own gain. One might say these forms of corruption have been there since the dawn of democracy, but there does seem to be a trend that makes recent  years stand out. There is a connection between how electorates are becoming less loyal to particular parties, less tolerant of mis-management,  less trusting of official messages, and the declining attractiveness of the political profession for career-minded individuals. The expense-fund scandal that tainted almost every MP in the House of Commons last year is just one example of a wider malaise (although the master stroke of this story was Private Eye shifting the focus on to the Barclay brothers, the tax-haven millionaire owners behind the Telegraph‘s pious ranting over MP’s expenses, exposing the exposers as it were). Why take endless media-hyped flack in the public eye when the commercial sector will pay five times as much? What is public service worth these days, when the ability of governments to really change things – witness the inability to deal with the causes of the financial crisis instead of the consequences – is so limited? Why become a politician?

This last question has a special significance in the Netherlands at the moment. The CDA-VVD coalition, supported from the assembly by the PVV, rests, with 76 seats, on a slim 1 seat majority. And that majority is now apparently on the skids because one of the PVV’s MPs, Eric Lucassen, was convicted of sexual harrassment while serving in the army. In 2002 Lucassen, then an instructor at the military training school in Ermelo, was one of 10 soldiers convicted of trading diplomas for sex with female trainees. He took the case to appeal, but it was rejected. Now the case has come to light, and Wilders, the politician who wants more police on the streets and a no-tolerance approach to law and order, has a serious problem in his own backyard. If Wilders requires Lucassen to withdraw from parliament, the majority can only be stitched together with the help of the two MPs from the hard-core Calvinist SGP.  

What was clear was that Wilders, the man who usually wraps the media around his little finger, was for once put on the back foot by the sudden negative attention: “This is not the way that you want to attract publicity as a party” he said, with a weekend of head-scratching and escape-hatching before him. For he knows that his decision on the Lucassen case could have far-reaching consequences not just for the coalition, but also for his party as a credible political faction. Meanwhile Rutte exuded confidence as usual yesterday - while his first cabinet might potentially be on the rocks already, his main political competitor was the one feeling the squeeze.

The way Wilders seems for once to be running away from the media instead of facing them down is quite exceptional, as this newscast shows:

No party is squeeky clean, but the Lucassen case is just the latest in a remarkable series of events surrounding Wilders’ political colleagues. And here we are not talking not only corruption, but also violence. The PVV Honour Roll:

Dion Graus: a whole dossier of legal cases, disputes, accusations, unpaid bills, false declarations, violence, and doctored CVs. And that was after he became an MP in 2006.

Hero Brinkman: Notorious for challenging the lack of democracy within the PVV -  and for allegedly using violence to obtain a beer at the parliament’s press centre in September 2009.

Marcial Hernandez: Spent the night in a police cell in September 2010 after head-butting a civil servant in a pub brawl in The Hague. The case remains open.  

Gidi Markuszower: Was fifth on the PVV electoral list, but withdrew in April this year due to negative publicity. Then Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin had informed Wilders that Markuszower was “a risk to the integrity” of the Netherlands, referring in cryptic language to the fact that the prospective MP had been in contact with a foreign intelligence service. Since Markuszower had been cautioned for possessing a firearm during a celebration for the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel in 2008, it seems clear who the foreign intelligence service was.

Mellony van Hemert: Was ninth on the PVV electoral list, but withdrew in April this year due to revelations over her false claim to be a psychologist and doubts over the truthfulness of a book she intended to publish on a notorious murder case.

Arjan Brogt: Was 34th on the PVV list, but withdrew in April this year after he was forced by a judge to repay 1500 Euro from false declarations he had submitted while member of a student association.

Jhim van Bemmel: irregular financial transactions surrounding the closure of his business New Tech Partners.

After the clear-out in April, when three of the above were purged from the party candidate list, Wilders must have hoped that the PVV wagon would hold together. But the reputation of Graus, Hernandez, and now Lucassen are raising new doubts. It is not known exactly how Wilders checks potential PVV candidates. In contrast to other parties, where individuals rise up through the committees and the caucuses, the PVV was thrown together rapidly, clearly without the benefit of major checks. It is up to each party to check out their candidates, no-one else. Hence the way in which this new case reflects strongly on Wilders’ management style.

Despite his conviction, it is not compulsory that Lucassen withdraws from parliament. After all, his party boss is in the dock these days as well, for inciting hatred. Perhaps Wilders will manage to turn this one around as well. But in contrast to his usual split-second political manipulations, this one is giving him a real headache. HP / De Tijd added to the mix over the weekend by throwing in one of those useless but nevertheless provocative statisitcs that journalists sometimes dig up: At present 20% of the PVV parliamentarians have been involved in criminal activities, a figure higher than the 13.8% of Moroccan youths who have seen the wrong side of the law in ‘problem-town’ Gouda. As of Monday afternoon, Wilders is still yet to react in full to the Lucassen affair.

‘This is a celebration’ said Maxime Verhagen on Saturday, after 32% of CDA party members had voted against the proposed coalition with the VVD. Meanwhile a few hundred miles to the East, Geert Wilders was talking of Islam as a ‘dangerous ideology’ in Berlin. Two days later he was sitting in an Amsterdam courtroom facing charges of inciting hatred. A case which then almost fell apart on the first day due to a major procedural mistake by the chief judge.

You couldn’t make this stuff up. Fortunately, HB contributor Jovan Pronk is on hand to offer some welcome insights….

Power Play

by Jovan Pronk

So then, after all the huffing and puffing at the CDA conference in Arnhem last weekend – check out crown-prince-in-retirement Camiel Eurlings emotional contribution (in Dutch):

Brief translation: The CDA is strong enough to hold onto its principles and enter this coalition, and we will never be like the PVV. Maxime, we will follow you into the sea if necessary etc etc

A minority VVD-CDA government, supported by Geert Wilder’s anti-Islamic Freedom Party (PVV), is virtually a fact. All that remains is the divvying up of the ministerial posts and the traditional photo on the palace steps with Queen Beatrix.

On one level CDA leader Maxime Verhagen has pulled off a remarkable piece of political gamesmanship. His divided party, halved and humiliated in the last election, is about to re-enter government as joint-partners with the VVD with, one assumes, more ministers than in the last administration. Despite dealing with Wilders there was much talk in Arnhem of the CDA staying true to its ‘Christian Democratic principles and values’, but as journalists Kustaw Bessems and  Dirk Jan Nieuwboer in ‘De Pers’ pointed out, Christian Democratic ideology is:

“a bit like the Loch Ness monster. Everyone has heard of it, but does it actually exist? Sure, it has something to do with ‘justice, responsibility, solidarity, stewardship’, but what any of this actually means today, no one knows. “We must finish first again!”. Eurlings knew that at least.”

Whether this government will last any longer than the farcical coalition between the VVD, CDA and the late Pim Fortuyn’s party remains an open question. Whilst Geert Wilders himself appears in an Amsterdam courtroom for the second day, on charges of discrimination and fermenting hate, remarkably little attention has been given to the fact that one of his MPs, defense spokesman Marcial Hernandez, spent a night in police custody having reportedly head butted a civil servant in a barroom row. Another Freedom Party MP, Hero Brinkman, was previously banned from the press centre following an altercation with a barman. No charges were pressed, and Brinkman denied he had actually attacked the barman, but admitted to a ‘drinking problem’. Sharp-eyed political journalist  Peter Middendorp noted that in a short period of time MPs from the Freedom Party have already been responsible for more acts of violence in and around the parliament than in any time in Dutch parliamentary history.

Whilst much focus was given to whether two ‘dissenting’ CDA MPs would back the coalition- they concluded they would, sort-of -  the minority government will also be dependent on law makers in Wilder’s one-member-party, voting as told. Or at least keeping out of police cells.

Like most Western European countries the Netherlands faces a difficult period of balancing financial austerity and budget cuts without damaging fragile economic recovery. It is set to do so with a minority government dependent on the support of a populist, far-right party of cranks, thugs and islamophobes. Conservative VVD leader Mark Rutte is set to become the first nominally ‘liberal’ Dutch Prime Minister since  Pieter Cort van der Linden (1913-1918). Whether his government will remain long in office is another matter.