The future of the Dutch coalition government after the
withdrawal of a junior partner hangs in the balance after Prime
Minister Jan Peter Balkenende tendered his cabinet's resignation to
Queen Beatrix on Friday.
The Queen, on Balkenende's advice, will open a round of
consultation with all leaders of political parties in parliament to
determine what to do next -- to give Balkenende a chance to form a
minority government or call early elections.
Balkenende's Christian Democrats (CDA) and the remaining
coalition partner, the Liberal Party (VVD), together hold 72 seats
in the 150-seat lower house parliament, four seats short of a
majority.
D66, which holds six seats in parliament and three seats in
Balkenende's 25-member cabinet, pulled out from the coalition
Thursday after the other two partners refused to let Immigration
Minister Rita Verdonk go, as was demanded by D66.
The withdrawal left Balkenende with little choice but to
announce the resignation of the whole center-right cabinet, 11
months ahead of a scheduled general election next May.
This means that the CDA and the VVD ministers will stay on in a
caretaker capacity without the D66 ministers until the next
election, which could be as early as this autumn.
Caretaker or minority government
However, it was clear Friday that the Christian Democrats and
the Liberals are keen to stay in office as a minority government
until next May rather than a powerless caretaker
administration.
After a meeting of his fallen cabinet on Friday, Balkenende said
a government with clout is needed to complete some of the cabinet's
unfinished work, including the preparations for the 2007Budget
which is to be submitted in September, and the planned deployment
of 1,400 troops to Afghanistan in August.
By Dutch law a caretaker government cannot implement new or
controversial proposals.
For the rump cabinet, forming a minority government would
require the support of one or more of the opposition parties, which
appears a tough task.
Most opposition parties are jubilant after the fall of the
government and are eager to see an early election. Wouter Bos,
leader of the Labor Party, has said he wants the election held as
soon as possible.
A poll published on Thursday showed that the Labor Party will be
the largest party in parliament with 42 seats if the election is
held now, while Balkenende's Christian Democrats would lose six of
their 44 seats and possibly become opposition.
Labor's likely closest allies, the Socialist Party and the Green
Left Party, would also stand to gain according to the poll, and
they seem quite impossible to provide the center-right government
with some ministers.
The most obvious candidate would be the populist Pim Fortuyn
Party (LPF), which was responsible for the implosion of Balkenende'
s first coalition in 2002 after just 87 days in power.
But this would be risky as Balkenende had already known from his
first cabinet that the LPF was a unstable and unreliable partner.
The party is now embroiled in infighting and opinion polls suggest
it will be wiped out in the next election.
If the CDA fails to secure support from opposition, it will have
to face an early election.
But this does not necessarily translate into a defeat for the
CDA because the party is now rapidly making up ground on the Labor
in polls, following signs of an economic upturn after years of
stagnation.
Finger pointing
Balkenende's second coalition government collapsed at a time when
most think it is beginning to gain from a long-awaited economic
recovery.
The coalition parties are pointing fingers at each other for the
responsibility for the downfall. VVD leader Mark Rutte said D66's
decision to quit was "shameful" and his fellow VVD member, deputy
prime minister Gerrit Zalm referred to the fall of the cabinet as "
unfortunate and wrong."
CDA leader Maxime Verhagen described it as "incomprehensible"
that D66 had decided to bring down the cabinet "just when we are
reaping the rewards."
But D66 leader Lousewies van der Laan blamed the CDA and the VVD
for the fall of the cabinet, saying they were not willing to
sacrifice Verdonk to continue the work of the cabinet.
Unnecessary row
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose Dutch citizenship affair sparked the current
cabinet row over Verdonk, reacted to the government's collapse with
regret.
She said from Washington that the cabinet should not fall just
because of Verdonk's handling of her citizenship affair.
"I feel very sad about it," Hirsi Ali told CNN. "There's a
complex of feelings going through me at the moment, and I feel the
Cabinet should not have resigned over this issue."
De Telegraaf, the biggest circulating newspaper in the country,
was scathing in its criticism of the whole affair.
"The fall of the government was unnecessary and regrettable,"
the paper said in its editorial. "The government still had a lot to
do to complete the most significant reforms in recent decades."
Many Dutch voters also questioned the need for a new poll. Many
think the whole affair about Hirsi Ali's Dutch passport is just a
little thing, and the politicians made too much fuss about it.
(Xinhua News Agency July 3, 2006)
