The first political backlash of the Eurocrisis

The left-wing Socialist party is leading the polls as traditional centrist parties suffer the fall-out of the eurozone crisis

A new chapter in the Netherland’s political freak show has begun. The Dutch political laboratory is alive and kicking with volatile undercurrents and overdramatic sentiment. Again the nation’s unpredictable political barometer has been cast adrift due to its extremely open proportional electoral system, with easy access for new incoming parties, movements and politicians. The consequence of this is that public opinion polls are also extremely changeable, because there are multiple parties positioned to tap into shifting electoral moods and temperament.

This time the bad news to report from the Netherlands is that both the old governing parties of the centre, the Christian democratic CDA and the social democratic PvdA - classical pillars of stability and continuity -, face an electoral bloodbath. The good news is that this is only happening in the opinion polls. In the most sensational of all these polls, the CDA has lost 9 seats in parliament (from 21 to 12) and PvdA has been registered as dropping 13 (from 30 to 17).

Who is profiting from this virtual crackdown on the political centre ground? In the last of these so-called “Maurice de Hond-polls”, for the first time ever in Dutch political history, it is the Socialist Party who emerge on top of the pile. This so-called left-wing populist flank party is trumping both the conservative liberal VVD of Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the anti-Islam Freedoms party of Geert Wilders. It is gaining a lot of virtual seats from both the PvdA and Wilders’ Party of Freedom (PVV).

What is behind this huge shift? According to the analyst behind the polls, Maurice de Hond, this can only be explained by the eurocrisis. Increasingly people sense the fall out of the eurocrisis. They fear recession, unemployment and the impact of the austerity programmes of conservative-liberal governments. Lower income groups are especially worried about their financial situation and prospects. 40% of all potential SP-voters say they might be affected negatively by the recession and growing unemployment. Only 6% of VVD-voters think along these lines.

The SP can be characterised as a eurosceptic and social-conservative party. It opposes the rescue operation for the euro (‘’this is in the interest of the bankers not of common people’’), and it is against pension age reform. This is why the Socialist Party - a party which ‘’social-democratised’’ itself quite successfully since its Maoist youth orientation in the 1970s, is getting the potential Labour vote. Meanwhile, it is also picking up the PVV vote because Geert Wilders is increasingly held accountable for government reform plans. He also coloured his reputation some more by attacking the Dutch Queen several times.

There are several reasons why the traditional European-Continental centrist parties are squeezed by contemporary economic pressures and electoral mood swings. In the Netherlands the overall political configuration does not help. After the last national election, the country is run by a minority cabinet of VVD and CDA, supported by the Geert Wilders party. The controversial cooperation with the Wilders party has dramatically divided the CDA-party, and destroyed its leadership.  They have had a vacancy for a new leader for about a year, while in government.

The centre-left PvdA has huge problems of its own. It feels forced to support the conservative right-wing-populist cabinet on international and European affairs, and on hugely unpopular socio-economic reforms, such as pension and mortgage reform.  It therefore can easily be blamed for being a ‘’collaborator’’ with the right-wing government, supporting unpopular reform programmes and promoting an open cheque for an all-out effort to rescue the euro.

The PvdA here encounters the trap of what one could call ’responsible opposition’. This is also the predicament that faces the opposition Labour party in the UK in relation to public sector pay freezes. Ed Miliband and Ed Balls have accepted freezes, probably for good reasons, but it does harm Labour’s credibility as a force of oppostion, at least in the eyes of the electorate and some trade unions. Responsible opposition could also be risky ground for the German SPD, as it remains far ahead of its classic constituency in its positioning on Europe: the SPD is on a more Europhile course than Angela Merkel’s politico-fiscal union for the eurozone.

But in the UK, nor in Germany, there is no Dutch-style proportional parliamentary multi-party system. There are neither SP nor PVV-like parties that can mobilise the relatively lower income groups against ‘’elite project’’ Europe, the irresponsible Greeks or against ill-understood reform programmes with a negative bias for people with less secure social, cultural and financial capital.

The social and political costs of the eurocrisis have still to come.

A contribution to State of the Left - Policy Network's monthly insight bulletin that reports from across the world of social democratic politics

René Cuperus is senior research fellow and director of international relations at the Wiardi Beckman Stichting, the thinktank of the Dutch Labour Party