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On 2017-03-16 01:13, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/15/dutch-elections-greenleft-jesse-klaver
Well this article's a bit misleading in talking about Groenlinks being the "big winner". It only seems that way because they did really badly in the previous election. Essentially ALL of the parties that were out of power increased their vote from the last election, while the parties in the current government got trampled. So it was another case of voter rebellion, but thankfully Wilders' fascist PVV was not the main beneficiary thereof (although his vote increased from the last election, he got much less than the 20% that was feared).
But the unquestionable "big loser" was the mainstream social-democratic party, connected to the unions, the PvdA (aka "Dutch Labor party") which has been sharing power with the establishment right wing. That means the left social democrats SP now have more seats than the establishment social democrats, again a sign of voter dissatisfaction more than any shift to the left. The leading (rightwing) VVD is going to have a lot of trouble forming a government among diverse parties to achieve a majority in parliament; I suspect it will take at least weeks of negotiations or a deadlock.
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