nimh wrote:The past five years, the VVD has indeed been capitalising again on the resentment against immigrants, asylum-seekers and Muslims, especially through the person of Immigration and Integration Minister "Iron" Rita Verdonk. The party is currently holding a leadership contest, and Verdonk is actually the prime contender to win.
nimh wrote:Developments around Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-Dutch filmmaker, author and MP who is best known for her strident stances against Islam, have rushed on at breathtaking pace the last four days [..]
Initially, the response from her party, the VVD, to the TV broadcast that revealed how she had made up a story in order to get asylum in the Netherlands fourteen years ago, was that it presented no new facts. [..]
The issue raised uncomfortable questions for the party, however. The VVD is the most prolific proponent in the Netherlands of a zero-tolerance policy regarding asylum-seekers [..] Soon, [..] List Fortuyn MP Nawijn [..] demanded an inquest into Hirsi Ali's Dutch citizenship. Having received asylum on a lie, she should never have been allowed to subsequently apply for and receive citizenship.
In response, Immigration Minister Verdonk, currently running for VVD leadership in party primaries, reversed her stance and ordered such an investigation. In fact, she declared to parliament that, based on current information, Hirsi Ali "is supposed to not have received Dutch citizenship". An investigation into her citizenship could ultimately lead to Hirsi Ali being deported.
Hirsi Ali has reacted with bafflement, telling reporters, "have they gone mad?". Having already planned to move to the US next year, she in turn declared that she would resign from parliament and leave already in September.
Whoooooo!! There's news!! Lemme build up the suspense a bit.
"Iron" Rita Verdonk was indeed the prime contender in a leadership contest of the VVD party, to be decided in a vote among all party members, who could vote by mail or electronically.
Verdonk had pitted herself against Mark Rutte, a more consensus-oriented, socially liberal representative of the party's "purple" wing, who had initially been parachuted as the prospective new leader by the top of the party.
Verdonk portrayed Rutte as a waverer, a centrist, a mere boy; herself, the resolute, steadfast bulwark of no-nonsense (immigration) law and order. She employed the campaign team who'd first launched Pim Fortuyn, and presented herself as the outsider, the woman who'd speak up for the common (Dutch) man. To bolster her insurrectionist credentials, her campaign team demanded "election observers" at the ballot count at party HQ.
The party elite was indeed somewhat alarmed at the prospect of her taking over, and various grandees portrayed her as too much of a loose canon, a populist, someone who'd be unable to broker allies needed in a government coalition. Rutte, instead, was the erudite wonderboy, the versatile professional. The only grandee to support Verdonk was former leader and European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein.
For a party-internal contest, it was bloody, far harsher than the leadership "primary" of the Labour Party in 2002, which had been the first such undertaking ever by one of the main Dutch parties.
The polls soon gave Verdonk a commanding majority. Among VVD-voters, she quickly led Rutte almost 2:1. She also was shown to have massive support among the far-right voters of the List Fortuyn and Geert Wilders, and at the same time a greater appeal to Christian-Democrat cross-over voters than Rutte. The polls, in fact, continuously showed that a Verdonk-led VVD would get 10 seats (or 7%) more in the next elections than one led by Rutte; a sizable bonus for a party that got 19% in the last elections.
Then the Ayaan Hirsi Ali affair blew up. Verdonk wavered, then firmly took a stance that she assumed would be popular among the common man: no nonsense, rules are rules, Hirsi Ali should be treated like anyone else.
Politically, it backfired. Practically unanimously, the parties in Parliament fell over her, and demanded assurances that she would ensure citizenship for Ali after all. When she reluctantly agreed but afterwards implied at a campaign meeting that she'd stick to her guns, the Cabinet and Prime Minister himself carpeted her and put her on warning that they'd check her every move now.
Rutte, meanwhile, managed to say as little as possible about the entire affair throughout.
Hirsi Ali gave her press conference. The response was overwhelming; the Dutch are not only cowardly as Paaskynen pointed out, but also fickle. Within two days, the polls tipped over. Suddenly, not the leftwing broadcasters who'd screened the Ali report were blamed, but Verdonk. And Ali should be given citizenship, period. Verdonk's odds at the leadership seemed to melt.
But the Dutch are fickle, I said. The 5-6 seats loss that pollsters momentarily registered for the VVD were gone again by the end of the week. Verdonk's numbers, too, recovered partially within a week, and more substantially still in the next.
By ballot closing time, last week, Verdonk again had an impressive lead on Rutte among VVD-voters and right-wing voters generally. Again, polls showed the same sizable electoral bonus if VVD members would choose for her. Again, speculation was rife; just yesterday, the country's largest newspaper, itself never shy of some rightwing rabblerousing, loudly headlined the risk of a government crisis if Verdonk would win.
I was pretty sure she'd win, but the only hope I held out was the thought that the pollsters had asked VVD-
voters; but the only ones eligible to cast their ballot were the VVD-
members. And there's only 40,000 of those; three-quarter of whom voted.
The interviews and news reports had already showed: the higher someone was in the VVD, the more likely he was to support Rutte instead. Of the VVD MP's, aldermen and mayors too, the sympathy for the less polarising Rutte, who'd campaign on the economy rather than migration, was palpable, in marked contrast with the mood among VVD-voters at large. Which way would active members veer? And the 'sleeping' ones who'd normally only ever send in their annual membership fee?
Tada... And the result is!
Mark Rutte ... 51%
Rita Verdonk ... 46%
Jelleke Veenendaal ... 3%
Rutte wins!
In a multi-party system like Holland's, this has gravitating effects for the whole political "ecosystem". If Verdonk had won, the centrist-liberal Democrats66 would have gone up on the polls. Now that Rutte has won, the far-right groups around Geert Wilders and other Fortuynists will suddenly open up again. If Verdonk had won, the VVD's only chance to continue in government would have been fighting a hard-right campaign and hoping to squeek through a narrow majority with the Christian-Democrats after all. Now, the VVD can possibly, in the long term at least, even start speculating on a renewed "purple" experiment with Labour again.
But what a small margin. If 800 votes had gone to Verdonk rather than Rutte, the balance would have tilted the other way.
800 votes ... that means Ayaan Hirsi Ali,
also VVD, and so quickly sacrificed by Verdonk when the media lit the fire - it might well have been her fate that made the difference, after all - despite the polls.
Something, at least, for her to be glad about, I'm sure.
