It also looks like Erdogan is throwing Germany into the dispute ("The countries that have embraced this thuggery have lost all their credibility. The Chancellor of Germany has come out and said she supported the Netherlands. We know that you are no different than them," Erdogan said.). tl;dr Erdogan wants his people to rally Turkish citizens and descendants in Europe to push Euro governments into allowing Turkey greater EU membership despite not meeting their end of the bargain.
This spate with Turkey helped the various pro-EU anti- Gert Wilders parties in today's election. Based on the exit poll, the various pro-EU parties have enjoyed a surge in support while Gert Wilders' anti-Islam & anti-EU party slumped. I guess Gert's campaign platform consisting almost entirely of anti-Islam & anti-EU one liners & tweets with very little real substance & policies didn't appeal to the vast majority of Dutch voters.
Yeah, it was always about that. Turkish citizens living abroad are allowed to vote in the April referendum and Erdogan is betting that he can win their support if he drives a wedge between them and their European homes. He'd rather position himself as the strongman in a post EU world.
Indeed. Altough he did not really loose per se. he got more votes than 4 years ago. But atleast he was not the largest party. The bad news (for me) is that the VVD won (Smart move by Rutte to get into this fight, made him seem strong).Also the CDA is bigger than I wanted. We are getting a conservative right winged government (ofcourse compaired to the US they are still tree huggers).
Yeah I noticed that Labour collapsed in this election. It seems like they suffered the same fate that the Liberal Dems had in the UK. Join the government as a coalition partner but take the punishment for tough votes from your constituents that didn't fit your party's platform. Sucks that your main center-left party was wiped out. Hopefully they recover next time. The last thing a country needs is for the center left to fragment. Also, there seems to be parallels to the US election (at least the midwestern part of the US). A lot of traditionally Labour areas moved pretty far to the right.
Arno, my only experience with Holland was a train change-layover in Rotterdam(my what an amazing edifice that station is) and then a few days in Amsterdam. Is Rotterdam that much more Nationalist and conservative compared to Amsterdam?
I'm for the Netherlands, of course. I can't imagine why any educated person would support Erdogan, who is busy trying to make himself dictator of Turkey and turning it into a non-secular Islamic state.
Yes that is exactly what happened. On top of that there was much turmoil in the Labor Party (PvDA). Furthermore there was a pretty charismatic leader of the Green Party. Yes. I have absolutely nothing positive to say about Rotterdam (except for Feyenoord). This was also the place where Pim Fortuyn got very popular. Thanks, I am also trying to look at it positive. The Party I voted for also got more votes than ever (green Party) and were the largest party on the left. However I do find it disturbing what governments we are probably getting. I expect the right to team up with the Christian parties…. I would hate it if the SGP become part of the government. Maybe I am proven wrong and the liberals (D66) can do some good in the government. But I doubt it. Overall I am happy that the PVV did not become the biggest party, but I had hoped we would have voted a bit more progressive and social.
I actually think this whole mess helped Erdogan. He can really tell the turkish people that Europe is against him and that he needs the power to fight the aggresive europeans. That is why I did not like the move by Rutte (I also think he did this mostly because it would help him in this election).
I had almost forgotten about Pim Fortuyn until you mentioned him. That guy was out there with outrageous statements and not backing down from them, that looking back (in some ways) he was a pre-curser to Trump. I don't know much about most of the individual politicians, but only what I've read about the different parties themselves. I was somewhat baffled by the splits and curious what the different coalitions will end up being in the government. Is it that the left parties aren't as motivated? You already mentioned something about the Labor party and what happened there. I had no clue about that, so this very informative. Thanks!
