Dutch voters reward the frugal Mark Rutte, who for the fourth time is on his way to becoming the country’s premier. The exit poll of the 21 in fact assign reinforced consents to Rutte and his center-right party, despite the scandals who had forced him to resign. Voters seem to have appreciated the politics of rigor in public accounts (and the hard line towards the countries of southern Europe, starting with Italy) and the containment measures imposed on the Dutch during the pandemic.
The Rutte’s party Vvd should make sure 35 seats (it had 33); exploit per i pro-European liberals of the D66 (another formation of the outgoing Conservative government) which would get 27 (+8) leaving third place to Geert Wilders’ populists (17 seats, down 3). Badly the Greens that go from 13 to 8 representatives. If these results were confirmed, the outgoing coalition would gain 4 seats in parliament in The Hague, going from 76 to 80 (out of 150).
Mark Rutte had resigned resignation in late 2020 after its executive was overwhelmed by the subsidy scandal. Some 26,000 poor Dutch families had been forced by the tax authorities to give them back economic aid received by the state because they are accused of having unduly pocketed them. Those accusations had turned out to be unfounded but the affected families had found themselves in serious difficulty. Rutte had resigned and the country had decided to go to vote despite the restrictions due to Covid.
What could have convinced the Dutch to confirm Rutte? Almost certainly hers attitude towards Europe and the Recovery Plan: the center-right government had held positions several times uncompromising and obstructive to the opening of Brussels to the most indebted countries (including Italy). Holland fought for a long time to come reduced the share of non-repayable appropriations within the Recovery Plan, for the benefit of loans that should have been repaid sooner or later. The renewed consensus obtained from the polls could now convince Rutte a relaunch its rigorous policy and frugal on the European table.
March 17, 2021 (change March 17, 2021 | 22:44)
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