Dear Editor,
Much is written by Dutch politicians about the state of politics in the islands. We seldom see our press dealing with similar problems in The Netherlands. I just came across a column in the Magazine of the Association of Dutch municipalities, which I translated for our readers in the islands to compare. The column is from January 23, 2015, and is written by André Krouwel, political scientist at Free University and scientific director of Kieskompas.
Tribalisation of local politics. The local government of Holland is unstable. While there are enormous extra task assignments in the social domain added and municipalities must cut expenses drastically, the local politics continues to fragment.
The court capital takes the cake. Recently, a member of the council quit the two-man faction of Green Left party. In total there are now fifteen parties, among which six one-seaters, in the Municipal Council of The Hague. The relations are totally polarized. Personal feuds and internal power struggles are the order of the day. Five parties made a monstrous alliance and formed a fragile governing body. Also in cities like Delfzijl, Deurne, Almelo, Hoorn, Lelystad, Schiedam and Apeldoorn the council is very fragmented.
This local political fragmentation has different consequences. Besides the decay of the large popular parties, it is especially the lack of thought-through and realizable political projects in which politicians believe. Politicians rock to and fro from incident to conflict, and loudly proclaim, especially their own, being in the right. Because the national parties do not succeed to get the underclass to join with the well-to-do middle class in a moderate, broadly supported and practically feasible political program, there is room for opportunists and populists. Often the new parties are split-offs from the national parties – especially on the right, but also many unqualified citizens with no administrative knowledge try to get a seat in the municipal council.
That seems to be very open and democratic, but constructive cooperation with these preachers of their own right is practically impossible. Often they are driven by diffuse anger with regard to the establishment. They are mostly unsatisfied baby boomers, who set themselves up as tribal leaders, and only protect the interests of their own supporters. They have one position only and that is: to nominate problems. The Netherlands is stuck in the Fortuyn modus.
It is pretty simple to mobilize political dissatisfaction, but it is much more difficult to transfer this to realizable political objectives. That means that you have to search for support with political opponents and have the will to add water to your own ideological wine. The Netherlands needs to reboot from the Fortuyn attitude to the old-time, but oh so effective consensus democracy.
Politics is the art of what is possible, of solving problems. Not of the loudest screamer.
When reading this you will realize that the islands in the West are not alone.
Will Johnson
