Interesting turn in the cabinet formation discussions this week. As talks test out the possibilities for Paars Plus, the parties involved have floated the idea of reaching a minimal core agreement for governing but allowing ‘free issues’ to be decided by the whole parliament. The set-up has not been tried before. The thinking seems to be that this will remove difficult obstacles from the cabinet formation, speeding up a result. It will also be a positive response to the splintered election outcome – or, as formateur Uri Rosenthal put it, the ‘pulverised political landscape.’

The NRC has checked out what this could all mean in practice. The big question is of course what a ‘free issue’ might be. It would be remarkable, for instance, if the number one issue – public spending cuts – would be turned over to parliament. The big differences - VVD 29 billion, PvdA 15 billion – are not to be trifled with, and are surely at the centre of government business. The catch is that by excluding public spending, where the Left could unite with the PVV on certain fronts, the agenda is going to be dominated by the parliamentary majority on the Right (VVD-CDA-PVV). So issues such as immigration, criminal justice, and nuclear energy could potentially be decided in ways at odds with the views held by the majority in the cabinet.

The minus of all this is that it will produce many complications as governing parties weigh up possible voting behaviour and the win-lose value of specific issues. The plus, on the other hand, is a parliament taken more seriously in the business of governing. So democracy is strengthened but leadership is weakened. But there is more to it than this, and it comes back to Rosenthal’s comment about being pulverised. How to make the current parliamentary and party system work in a nation politically increasingly footloose and divided? How to create a governing majority with parties that all equally feel they legitimately should govern? 

The answer – expand the cabinet to include the whole parliament. Bring everyone in, exclude nobody. Everyone responsible, no howls of indignation from the opposition benches by the PVV. Balance the Leftist cabinet with the Rightist assembly. Most commentators asked by the NRC seemed positive. ‘It will be a very open and exciting political process’ said GroenLinks advisor Dik Pels. It is indeed a rational, decent, novel, and probably totally hopeless attempt to hold things together. In the media-frenzy that this situation will create, every move being tracked, where the instant sound-bite rules, it will be those who are able to react the fastest and the most glib who will call the shots. And who might that be?

Jort Kelder, a regular on Dutch TV discussion progs, is guaranteed to produce political opinion of a controversial nature. The man who put Quote into the big time, and who runs a nifty website with his ever-present braces as trademark, Kelder has nurtured himself into the position of spokesperson for the Dutch business sector. Now that the Queen has finally named two informateurs – Uri Rosenthal for the VVD and Jacques Wallage for the PvdA – the path to Paars Plus is wide open. (Why we needed a week of formateur Tjeenk Willink to announce this is beyond me, but maybe I am missing some of the subtleties of the royally-ordained cabinet formation process). With this result now looming, Kelder seized the moment for a nice broadside in the NRC last weekend (’stop de rituele formatiedans, installeer een zakenkabinet’).

During the election campaign Kelder took every opportunity to bang on about how stupid it was that the political leaders avoided the bad economic situation and kept on pestering each other about ‘incidentals’ like tax relief and immigration policy. Now, almost a month since the elections, he’s had enough. We knew well beforehand that it was going to be difficult to form a new cabinet. The elections produced exactly the splintered result that we expected. Weeks later we are still stuck, as Kelder puts it, in the ‘formation-dance’. And worse – even though the Right won, the Left are now going to govern. Scandal! Time for a change.

For Kelder its time to abandon all the parties, each with their own particular interest groups, for ‘a real meritocracy’ – a ‘business cabinet’, made up of professionals who know how to run things in the long term and who don’t get caught up in short-term media-hype (Hague) nonsense. Its time for real men! Disagreements are not to fought out endlessly in parliament but can be immediately solved by referendum. And the Left clearly hates the rich so much that they have made them ’the new Jews’ who can be blamed for everything.

Kelder does have some good points. The fluctuating winds of the Dutch electorate have produced an increasingly unstable situation, which opportunists like Wilders have benefitted from. The traditional Left-Right distinctions are fading out, so that voters no longer associate with one party (he rightly states that less than 2 % of the population is now member of a party) and shop around according to whim and wealth. So its time for a new entrepreneurial elite to break through the impasse and get things done: Jaap Maljers, Wiebe Draijer, Tex Gunning, to name a few. The Dutch political system also allows outside experts to be named to ministerial positions, so this is all within the bounds of possibility.

This is all very well, but he does mess up his argument with some real clangers. If he dislikes the way that the country has fallen into the hands of a constantly shifting under-layer (onderlaag), why give this group greater power through referenda? And if he is so worried that the Netherlands is slipping down the list of ‘knowledge-economies’, no longer the model country (gidsland) that it is supposed to be, are not those nations that succeed in this area – he names Finland, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Austria, and Denmark – some of the most stable democracies around? Do we really need a business elite to sort out what bog-standard politicans can apparently do elsewhere? Especially when he complains that only in Scandinavia are income taxes higher. Thats right, Jort – maybe they invest the extra tax money in their successful knowledge-economies! No kidding!

And what about this – ‘Endlessly talking politicans have produced empty state treasuries and top-heavy welfare states for the parliamentary democracies.’ Empty state treasuries? I seem to recall this was due to the need to fill huge financial holes left by the wonderfully functioning private financial sector with public money……maybe I’m too cynical, but forgive me for wanting to avoid those kinds of poeple being in charge.

Whatever the blatant inconsistencies, it is still a joy to read Jort Kelder. He comes across as a kind of 21st century mix of T.S. Eliot, Plato, and Milton Friedman, calling for the new Guardians to seize control, maintain cultural standards, introduce a flat tax, and keep the plebs in line. Churchill, as ever for these kinds of thinkers, is the perfect model, the man who stood alone as the enemy was allowed to rise because of everyone’s ignorance. Churchill, scourge of the Nazis – and architect of the WW I Gallipoli disaster, violent oppressor of the 1926 General Strike, and supporter of eugenics for the lower classes. What about Kelder’s suggestion for a voter exam: ’Whoever is too lazy or too dumb to know the basics about democracy, economics and society, will not receive a ballot paper.’ This is great stuff, just when the cabinet discussions were starting to get boring. Thanks Jort.

The ‘informateur’ Uri Rosenthal announced Friday that the first round of negoations for forming a cabinet were over and he had therefore completed his initial task. The expectation – and the advise of Rosenthal himself – was that two informateurs would be chosen, one representing the VVD and one the PvdA, to enable two-track negoations to continue next week. This would equitably reflect the stand-off between the two largest parties. It also indicated a long second round of talks in the offing.

Today however the Queen, whose task it is (having taken advice) to announce the informateur, pulled a surprise by declaring that there would be only one, and he is from the PvdA – Herman Tjeenk Willink, vice-president of the Raad van Staat (Council of State), the main political advisory body for the monarchy. This is quite a surprise, as it puts the emphasis squarely on a centre-left cabinet or at least a centrist cabinet involving both left and right. Significantly, Tjeenk Willink was informateur once before – in 1994, when Paars I (PvdA-VVD-D66) under Wim Kok came into being. Looks like we could be heading in the same direction.

The party leaders now identified to play a role in the second round – representing VVD, CDA, PvdA, D 66, and GroenLinks – have been invited today to speak with the Queen to discuss the state of play. So no Wilders, who reacted, predictably, that this was a scandal and a total rejection of ‘his’ voters. Since yesterday Maxime Verhagen of the CDA has suddenly shown an interest in taking part in cabinet discussions, after two weeks of holier-than-though sitting on the fence. The entire first round now takes on a sharper image – it was no more than manouevering to ensure that the PVV and Wilders could be shut out. By not including a VVD informateur and therefore not inviting Wilders to discuss matters at the palace, the message of the Queen today was crystal clear. This man Wilders is not ‘one of us’.

Wilders has denounced this ‘cordon sanitaire’, as well he might. What is so weak about this particular exclusionary tactic is that it has been accomplished with no single attempt to attack the PVV’s programme. This is a stupid mistake, mainly on the part of the VVD and the CDA. A head-on declaration of why they do not want to share a cabinet with the PVV on policy grounds would have given a clear message of principal and show where they stand. It would be pretty easy to do so – one really does wonder how many of the PVV voters have read the party’s programme, because its quite an unbelievable document. Instead both VVD and CDA pretended as if they might cooperate, passing the buck back and forth until the first round was over and Uri Rosenthal could report that there was no possibility for a cabinet that included Wilders. This simply gives Wilders all the ammunition he needs to tell his supporters that he’s being unjustly treated.

What makes the politically-tinted decision by the Queen today all the more interesting is the fact that Wilders has already spoken out against the existing political system in the Netherlands which continues to give the Queen an influential role behind the scenes. He favours the Swedish model that would keep the ceremonial aspect of the monarchy but remove them from the serious political scene. I suspect right now he might be thinking more along the lines of outright abolition.

The choice of informateur today, for instance, was not taken by her alone but on advice of others – however, the fact that she went against the advice of the first informateur, Uri Rosenthal, indicates already that something or other was being said and done in the last 24 hours that led to a different outcome. A PvdA informateur in current circumstances is truly a remarkable political decision. The intention of course is that this will narrow down the possibilities for a cabinet and get the job done. But the fear now is that its going to lead to a compromise cabinet either fudging things or being blocked by internal divisions. This is exactly what happened to Paars the fist time round, which led to the dramatic rise of Pim Fortuyn. Paars II could see the same happening with Wilders.   

And if it does, the already shaky ground for the monarchy could take a further jolt.