DUTCH POLITICS ELECTORATE PROCLAIMS: “A PLAGUE ON ALL YOUR PARTIES”

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31238, 9 December 1966, Page 16

DUTCH POLITICS ELECTORATE PROCLAIMS: “A PLAGUE ON ALL YOUR PARTIES”

(By the correipondent oj the "Financial Timet". London, in Th. Hague)

("Reprinted from the "Financial Timet" bp arrangement)

The manoeuvres which led to the formation of a new Cabinet in Holland at the end of November lasted a total of 39 days. Although this was rather less than the average time needed to solve Dutch Government crises, both during the inter-war period and in the years since the war, the Dutch public considered the lapse of time between the fall of the Cals Cabinet and the emergence of the Zijlstra Cabinet excessive.

No doubt this impatience is one symptom of the widespread disenchantment in Holland with the organisation and operation of the political system and with many of the people who work it. Some of the objections, such as the feeling of alienation between "them” and the man in the street, run parallel with those in Britain. Ten Parties Other objections are different because the Dutch system is very different. Proportional representation in its purest form one non-transferable vote for every adult citizen — replaced the constituency system immediately after the First World War. Since the last General Election in 1963, 10 parties have been represented in the Lower House, ranging from the G.P.V. Protestants with one seat to the Catholic People’s Party with 50. Though this is a post-war record, a very similar situation existed in the 100-seat House of the twenties and thirties. The number of parties contesting the elections tends to be even larger. More than 20 are expected to do so in 1967, a steady increase from the 10 which took part in 1946. The record was set in 1933, just before the introduction of deposits, when there were 54 contending groups. Apart from the present distinction between the five “large” parties ranging from 13 to 50 seats, each capable of supplying an effective contribution to government and commanding 90 per cent of the parliamentary vote among them, and the five midgets, who together hold 15 seats, two great and intersecting divisions run through Dutch politics. The first is between denominational and lay parties—there also happen to be five of each. The second, which runs right across denominational party lines is between left-wing and right-wing attitudes to economic and social problems. Parties’ Wings The latter division is particularly noticeable in the Catholic People’s Party, but it can also be ■ seen in the two largest Protestant parties. All three have a Left wing, both in the House and in the country, which tends to take the same stand on social and economic questions as the Labour Party—now the second largest in the House, with 43 seats. They also have a Right wing which tends to

judge such matters with a similar attitude to that of the National Liberal Party (16 seats). When the denominational parties’ traditional mastery at internal compromise fails, their centre now swings to the Left, now to the Right. Since for the last 50 years no party has ever held more than a third of the seats in Parliament, all Governments have to be coalitions. This means in practice that the Catholics, who have never been in opposition since the First World War, have to team up either with the Socialists or with the Liberals. The latter combination has to be reinforced by both major Protestant parties to form a workable majority. As these coalitions are never entered into before elections, a voter who supports any of the three major denominational parties has no idea whether he is helping to strengthen a future coalition with a more Left-wing or more Right-wing tendency, while the supporters of the Protestant parties cannot know whether their party will choose to govern or to go into opposition. There are signs that this blind faith in the wisdom of denominational party leaders is beginning to weaken at last, especially in Roman Catholic circles, where the general liberalising atmosphere of the Vatican Council seems to be having a loosen-ing-up effect. Disenchantment But this does not only apply to the Catholic Party. In the last year or so a strong wave of disenchantment with the existing political establishment and the old party alignments has come to the surface. In its make-up several unrelated factors are discernible. First, a growing number of small businessmen and shopkeepers, smallholders and unskilled labourers are being left behind in the general rise of prosperity and ground down by the effects of an inflation which has been gathering speed for several years. Many middle class professionals, particularly general practitioners, feel themselves in much the same boat. Second, since the last parliamentary elections, the lowering of the voting age from 23 to 21 has increased the electorate by hundreds of thousands of young people. Many of them earn a good wage, have kicked over the parental traces and do not feel much personal responsi-

bility, which they observe to be at a discount in the general welfare state atmosphere. Third, party switches have in themselves created cynicism. The Catholics and A.R.P.-Protestants, who had joined forces with the National Liberals and the C.H.U.-Protestants after the 1963 elections, dropped these coalition partners in 1965 and, without new elections, teamed up with the Socialists who, in turn, were dropped by the Catholics last October. Since then the Catholic party in the country has been understandably racked by utter confusion. In Holland, where Ministers are not Members of Parliament, it is by no means considered strange for a party to vote down—and thereby throw out—its own Ministers. What many Dutchmen do find odd is the increasingly rapid oscillation of the Catholics between leftwing and right-wing partners, a course dictated by their party’s own split personality on social and economic matters. Dutch “Poujadist” "A plague on all your houses”: this feeling is most strikingly personified in the political field by Hendrik Koekoek, the 54-year-old floor leader of the Farmers’ Party which captured its first three seats in the House in 1963. A shrewd, if semi-literate peasant, he revels in debating and electioneering methods which, in Britain, would be unthinkable. His general approach to politics has been variously compared to that of Mr Poujade, Senator McCarthy and Dr. Goebbels. But he is entirely himself: a dogged thin faced man with a broad country accent who just does not give a damn. In political debate he has one theme only: the immediate destruction of all Marketing Boards. Since his arrival in the House, Mr Koekpek’s support in the country has trebled, as this year's local elections showed. Among his adherents, real farmers are in a minority. His deliberately negative attitude to the establishment appeals to many among the very poor, the very disgruntled and the very young, particularly in the urban West. A recent opinion poll tips the Farmers as the big winners (from three to nine seats) and the Catholics as the big losers (from 50 to 39 seats) in the General Election which is now less than three months away.