Dutch general election, 2010 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The 2010 Dutch general election was held on Wednesday, 9 June 2010. After the fall of the cabinet Balkenende IV on 20 February, Queen Beatrix

Beatrix of the Netherlands

Beatrix is the Queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands comprising the Netherlands, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, and Aruba. She is the first daughter of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld. She studied law at Leiden University...

accepted the resignation of the Labour Party

Labour Party (Netherlands)

The Labour Party , is a social-democratic political party in the Netherlands. Since the 2003 Dutch General Election, the PvdA has been the second largest political party in the Netherlands. The PvdA was a coalition member in the fourth Balkenende cabinet following 22 February 2007...

ministers on 23 February. After the election, that evolved to a neck-to-neck race between the conservative-liberal

Conservative liberalism

Conservative liberalism is a variant of liberalism, combining liberal values and policies with conservative stances, or, more simply, representing the right-wing of the liberal movement....

VVD

People's Party for Freedom and Democracy

The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy is a conservative-liberal political party located in the Netherlands. The VVD supports private enterprise in the Netherlands and is often perceived as an economic liberal party in contrast to the social-liberal Democrats 66 alongside which it sits in...

and the social-democratic

Social democracy

Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...

PvdA, Mark Rutte

Mark Rutte

Mark Rutte is a Dutch politician who has been Prime Minister of the Netherlands since 14 October 2010, as well as Minister of General Affairs in the Rutte cabinet...

was able to form a right-wing government with CDA

Christian Democratic Appeal

The Christian Democratic Appeal is a centre-right Dutch Christian democratic political party. It suffered severe losses in the 2010 elections and fell from the first to the fourth place...

and VVD, supported from the Parliament by the PVV

Party for Freedom

The Party for Freedom is a Dutch right-wing political party. Founded in 2005 as the successor to Geert Wilders' one-man party in the House of Representatives, it won nine seats in the 2006 general election, making it the fifth largest party in parliament, and third largest opposition party. It...

of Geert Wilders

Geert Wilders

Geert Wilders is a Dutch right-wing politician and leader of the Party for Freedom , the third-largest political party in the Netherlands. He is the Parliamentary group leader of his party in the Dutch House of Representatives...

, after talks with the PvdA and other left-wing parties (trying to form a so called Purple Coalition

Purple (government)

Purple is a common term in politics for governments or other political entities consisting of parties that have red and blue as their political colours...

without Christian parties) broke down.

The 150 seats of the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal) were contested, and were filled using party-list proportional representation

Party-list proportional representation

Party-list proportional representation systems are a family of voting systems emphasizing proportional representation in elections in which multiple candidates are elected...

for a nominal four-year term.

Background

The election follows the PvdA's withdrawal in February from the coalition over the contribution of Dutch soldiers to the War in Afghanistan

War in Afghanistan (2001–present)

The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...

. According to the Dutch constitution new elections had to be held within 83 days.

Debates

The first radio debate was held on 21 May 2010. The first television debate, held on 23 May was, according to instant polls, won by Mark Rutte on 36%, with Job Cohen second on 24%, and Geert Wilders and Jan Peter Balkenende third, on 18%.

Polls

Party	2006 Dutch general election, 2006 The General Election to the House of Representatives of the States-General of the Netherlands was held in the Netherlands on November 22, 2006. And followed the call for new elections after the fall of the Second Balkenende cabinet....		Politieke Barometer		Peil.nl		TNS-NIPO
Party	%	Seats (150)	8-6-2010	Exit polls (21.00 hrs)	7-6-2010	Exit polls	31-5-2010	Exit polls
CDA Christian Democratic Appeal The Christian Democratic Appeal is a centre-right Dutch Christian democratic political party. It suffered severe losses in the 2010 elections and fell from the first to the fourth place...	26.5	41	24	21	25	24	21	21
PvdA Labour Party (Netherlands) The Labour Party , is a social-democratic political party in the Netherlands. Since the 2003 Dutch General Election, the PvdA has been the second largest political party in the Netherlands. The PvdA was a coalition member in the fourth Balkenende cabinet following 22 February 2007...	21.2	33	30	31	30	30	31	29
SP Socialist Party (Netherlands) The Socialist Party is a democratic socialist political party in the Netherlands. After the 2006 general election, the Socialist Party became one of the major parties of the Netherlands with 25 seats of 150, an increase of 16 seats. The party was in opposition against the fourth Balkenende cabinet...	16.6	25	14	15	12	13	13	15
VVD People's Party for Freedom and Democracy The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy is a conservative-liberal political party located in the Netherlands. The VVD supports private enterprise in the Netherlands and is often perceived as an economic liberal party in contrast to the social-liberal Democrats 66 alongside which it sits in...	14.7	22	33	31	36	34	37	36
PVV Party for Freedom The Party for Freedom is a Dutch right-wing political party. Founded in 2005 as the successor to Geert Wilders' one-man party in the House of Representatives, it won nine seats in the 2006 general election, making it the fifth largest party in parliament, and third largest opposition party. It...	5.9	9	17	23	18	18	17	18
GL GreenLeft GreenLeft is a green political party operating in the Netherlands.GreenLeft was formed on 1 March 1989 as a merger of four left-wing political parties: the Communist Party of the Netherlands, Pacifist Socialist Party, the Political Party of Radicals and the Evangelical People's Party...	4.6	7	11	11	10	11	8	10
CU ChristianUnion The ChristianUnion , abbreviated to CU, is a Dutch Christian democratic political party. A centrist party, the CU's policies combine social conservatism and soft euroscepticism with more centre-left positions on economic, immigration, and environmental issues.Founded in 2000 as a merger of the...	4.0	6	7	5	6	6	9	6
D66 Democrats 66 Democrats 66 is a progressive and social-liberal political party in the Netherlands. D66 was formed in 1966 by a group of politically unaligned, young intellectuals, led by journalist Hans van Mierlo. The party's main objective was to democratise the political system; it proposed to create an...	2.0	3	10	10	10	11	10	11
PvdD Party for the Animals The Party for the Animals is a political party in the Netherlands.Among its main goals are animal rights and animal welfare, though it claims not to be a single-issue party...	1.8	2	2	1	1	1	1	1
SGP	1.6	2	3	2	2	2	3	2
ToN/Trots Proud of the Netherlands Proud of the Netherlands is a Dutch Political party. The party was founded on 17 October 2007 by Rita Verdonk, who at that time was an independent member of the House of Representatives. Verdonk declared that her movement would consist of "sympathizers" and, like the Party for Freedom, would not... *	–	–	0	0	0	0	0	1
Others	1.2	0	0	0	0	0	–	–
* Trots op Nederland is the party formed by Rita Verdonk after she split from the VVD in 2007 and became an independent representative.

Polls indicated that the elections were too close to call.

Result

Turnout was reported to be over 5% less than the previous elections due to heavy rain and stormy weather.

National summary

Reaction

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende stepped down from his position in the CDA and resigned his parliamentary seat on the evening of the election, saying he was taking "political responsibility" for the unsatisfactory election results of his party and that "The voter has spoken, the outcome is clear."

Analysis

Some international media speculated that "for the first time in this nation's history, a Jewish man, albeit a secular one, is on the verge of becoming the next prime minister ... Job Cohen, who was until recently the Mayor of Amsterdam, and represents the top of the ticket for the PvdA ... is at the end of a long battle to run the country that began in February when the PvdA backed out of the ruling coalition government because it did not want to send Dutch troops back to Afghanistan."

Government formation

Expectations were that the formation of a new government

2010 Dutch cabinet formation

Following the Dutch general election of 2010, held on June 9, a process of cabinet formation started, which typically involves 3 phases:# exploring with which parties to form a coalition,# negotiating to draft a coalition agreement ,...

would take some time. The international media also read this as a slim victory for the "austerity-minded" Liberals amidst the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis

2010 European sovereign debt crisis

From late 2009, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed among investors concerning some European states, intensifying in early 2010 and thereafter.....

.

On 14 October, Mark Rutte