Post by pieter on Mar 15, 2023 16:47:04 GMT -7
In the International Media
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64967513
Dutch Farmers protest party in shock victory in provincial elections
A new powerhouse of Dutch right-wing populism took political center stage on Thursday after winning its first provincial elections, a victory that was seen as a resounding rebuke to Prime Minister Mark Rutte's ruling four-party coalition.
With counting of ballots from Wednesday's vote wrapping up, the Farmer Citizen Movement — known by its Dutch acronym BBB — was predicted to win 15 seats in the 75-seat upper house of the Dutch national parliament, level with the bloc formed by left-of center Labor and Green parties.
The provincial lawmakers elected in Wednesday's vote choose national senators at the end of May.
Maiden victory for the protest party
“Now is the time to take citizens seriously. I am open to talks with everybody. We are ready," said BBB leader, Caroline Van der Plas.
Her party was formed in 2019 and took part in provincial elections for the first time this year. It won 1% of the vote in the national election in 2021.
www.euronews.com/2023/03/16/dutch-farmers-protest-party-in-shock-victory-in-provincial-elections
Victory speech (unfortunately in Dutch)
Folks,
Poland of course has experience with Farmers parties like the Polish People's Party (Polish: Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, PSL) and the Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland (Polish: Samoobrona Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, SRP) of late Andrzej Lepper, a nationalist, populist, and agrarian political party and trade union in Poland. Its platform combines left-wing populist economic policies with religious conservative social policies. But for the Netherlands, Farmer populism and a huge farmer movement and party is something relatively new. We had our far right fringe party The Farmers' Party (Dutch: Boerenpartij, BP), a Dutch agrarian political party, with a strong conservative outlook and a populist appeal. In 1958 in several Gelderland (Province) municipalities "Free Farmers" lists contested in municipal elections. In 1959 the Farmers' Party (Boeren Partij) officially applied at the Kiesraad (Electoral Council) to participate in the 1959 elections, although the party was unable to win a seat. The founder of the party was Hendrik Koekoek, the chair and founder of the Association for Freedom for Agricultural Business, also known as the "Free Farmers". The organization resisted increasing government intervention and the institutionalization of farming. These also became important issues for the Farmers' Party. The BP was the first anti-establishment party elected into the Dutch House of Representatives after the Second World War. The Farmers' Party was in the Dutch House of representatives from 1963 until 1981. In 1963 with three seats of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives and in leaving the party from 1977 until 1981 with only one seat. They lost that seat after 1981 and disappeared from the Dutch political arena. Although Farmers' Party's leader Hendrik Koekoek (22 May 1912 – 8 February 1987) (his surname is the Dutch word for Common cuckoo) was widely known, he was never a major force in the Dutch political landscape.
The present day Farmer Citizens Movement (BBB) of Caroline van der Plas is a different case. She is more succesful in both the Dutch House of Representatives as in the media and in the Dutch society due to her presence at farmers protests, political debates, newspaper and magazine articles, tv programs, radio shows, podcasts and etc.
Carolina van der Plas
Caroline van der Plas in the Dutch House of Representatives in The Hague
Carolina Ann Maria "Caroline" van der Plas (born 6 June 1967) is a Dutch journalist and politician who has served as a member of the House of Representatives since 2021. A former member of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) of Wopke Hoekstra, which she left in 2019, she is the founder and current party leader of the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB).
Biography
Early life and career
Van der Plas was born on 6 June 1967 in Cuijk to a Dutch father and an Irish mother. Her father, Wil van der Plas (1937–2014), was a sports journalist and worked for the regional newspaper Deventer Dagblad. Her mother, Nuala Fitzpatrick, is a retired politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), who served as an alderman in the municipal executive of Deventer.
Van der Plas began her career as a journalist, covering the meat industry for Reed Business. She would later shift to communications, providing support to agricultural workers' associations and the Dutch Association of Pig Farmers.
Political career
Originally a member of the CDA, Van der Plas left the party shortly after the 2019 provincial elections. During her membership, she had frequently criticised the party for not doing enough to represent the interests of the agricultural sector. In response to the widespread farmers' protests that took place in the Netherlands in October 2019, she then founded the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB).
On 17 October 2020, Van der Plas was unanimously chosen as the party leader of the BBB. Her campaign for the 2021 general election focused on issues important to rural and agrarian voters, including pledges for a "Ministry of the Countryside" located at least 100 kilometres from The Hague, and a removal of the ban on neonicotinoids. The party won one seat in the House of Representatives, and Van der Plas was installed on 31 March 2021.
Personal life
Van der Plas lives in Deventer and has two sons. Her husband, Jan Gruben, died in 2019 of pancreatic cancer.
Carolina van der Plas with her late husband Jan Gruben
Farmers’ party BBB steamrollers provincial elections, could win 17 senate seats
March 16, 2023 - By Gordon Darroch
Protest groups have called on farmers to turn their flags the right way up again. Photo: ANP/Jeffrey Groeneweg
The farmers’ party BBB could win 17 seats in the new Dutch senate, two more than predicted in initial exit polls.
With 94% of the votes counted, the BBB has been confirmed as the largest party in nine of the 12 provinces and has an unassailable lead in Gelderland. In Noord-Holland the party is marginally ahead of the VVD, while GroenLinks has a narrow lead in Utrecht.
The results are a setback for the government’s efforts to cut nitrogen compound emissions by buying out farmers, in order to comply with European conservation laws.
Since the Council of State ruled in 2019 that the government was bound by the limits provinces have been unable to issue environmental permits for large-scale projects such as housing developments, motorways and port facilities.
BBB leader Caroline van der Plas said the vote for her party was more than a protest against the nitrogen plans, which have led to mass protests in rural communities. Farmers have hung Dutch tricolor flags upside-down, blockaded distribution centres and driven fleets of tractors into the centre of The Hague and provincial capitals.
‘People feel unseen, unheard and that they’re not being listened to,’ she said. ‘They thought: it’s our turn now, and they’ve done that by turning out at the ballot box en masse.’
The BBB’s vote share was closely matched by the two left-wing parties, GroenLinks and Labour (PvdA), who are projected to take 15 seats in the senate.
That would allow them to supply the votes to give the government a majority in the upper house, but the parties are expected to put pressure on the cabinet to accelerate the transition to green energy.
‘There’s a choice in the upper house now. Will they go left or right?’ said GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver. ‘We’ll come up with good proposals, but we will block laws if necessary and do everything in our power in parliament to ensure they turn left.’
The BBB took 33.5% of the vote in Drenthe and 31% in Overijssel, taking 17 seats in each of assembly while no other party won more than four. It is also set to win by clear margins in Gelderland and Noord-Brabant, two provinces with a large concentration of livestock farming.
The coalition parties all lost seats, with Mark Rutte’s VVD party finishing third in the poll on 10 provisional seats, two less than in 2019. D66 and the ChristenUnie are forecast to lose one senator each, with five and three respectively, while the Christian Democrats (CDA), many of whose traditional rural voters defected to the BBB, could lose four of their 9 seats.
The animal rights party PvdD is forecast to gain a fourth seat, while two newcomers, pro-European Volt and the hard-right JA21, could take two and three seats respectively.
The biggest losers were the far-right Forum voor Democratie, who won 14.3% of the vote in 2019 but slumped to just 3% this time around, after four years in which the party became embroiled in internal rows and saw all but one of its 12 senators defect.
Two of the groups behind the tractor protests, Farmers Defence Force and Agractie, called on farmers to celebrate the result by raising the Dutch flags the right way up, with the red stripe at the top.
The people have shown that they support the farmers and not the coalition,’ said Sieta van Keimpema of Farmers Defence Force.
‘We’ll turn the flag back round, but if there’s no movement or they form a left-wing coalition in the senate, then it’ll probably be switched again,’ cattle farmer René Staal told NOS.
The Irish mother of farmer party leader Caroline van der Plas, Nuala Fitzpatrick reacts to her daughters victory
To her daughter as a mom, "Now You have to take a few days off after this election circus to get some rest".
Farmer–Citizen Movement (Dutch: BoerBurgerBeweging)
Dutch Prime Minister Rutte in muddy waters as provincial voters turn out for farmers and left alliance
BoerBurgerBeweging party leader Caroline van der Plas reacts to the exit poll showing the BoerBurgerBeweging in front. Photo: ANP/Sem van der Wal
The farmers’ party BoerBurgerBeweging is set to be the big winner in provincial elections in the Netherlands, dealing a blow to the government’s plans to reduce nitrogen pollution by buying out cattle farmers. Less than four years after it was founded, Caroline van der Plas’s party is set to be the largest group in the senate, with 15 of the 75 seats, based on a 19% share of the vote. Provincial assembly members will choose the new senate in May. ‘The Netherlands has clearly shown that we’ve had enough of these policies,’ Van der Plas told broadcaster NOS. ‘It’s not just about nitrogen, it’s about citizens who are unseen and unheard, who aren’t being taken seriously, whose problems aren’t being tackled. ‘The train in The Hague keeps rolling on. We’re going to stop the train.’
Two left-wing parties, Labour (PvdA) and GroenLinks (GreenLeft), who are forming an alliance in the senate, are also on course to win 15 seats, according to an exit poll for national broadcaster NOS. That would allow the coalition parties, who are projected to win 24 seats between them, to bypass the BBB, as the GroenLinks and PvdA alliance would supply enough votes for a majority. The two parties have already said they will drive a hard bargain on climate change, with GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver warning last week that he would block the cabinet’s green energy plans unless it accelerated the transition to renewable energy and the abolished fossil fuel subsidies.
‘Right or left?’
GreenLeft leader Jesse Klaver with Labour (PvdA) leader Attje Kuiken earlier at a joint GreenLeft/Labour Party meeting. The reality proved the polls to be wrong, the coalition parties can't easily bypass the BBB. If the coalition with try to survive by cooperating with the leftwing parties they will ignore and reject the singal the electorate gave with the monster victory of the BBB.
Klaver told a campaign rally for both parties: ‘Our ambition was to be the biggest faction in the upper house, the first left-wing party in 20 years, and that is still possible. Will the cabinet go right or left?’
It would also put the cabinet on a collision course with the provincial governments, where the BBB will seek to build coalitions. The cabinet will need the consent of provincial governments to carry out its plan to buy out high polluting farms and businesses that border nature conservation zones.
Christianne van der Wal, the minister in charge of nitrogen reduction policy, warned there could be no turning back on the buyout plan, which is a response to a judgment by the Council of State based on a binding European conservation agreement.
‘It’s a very complicated portfolio that will have a very big impact on a huge number of people, but at the same time we have no choice,’ she said.
Exit polls in three provinces projected that the BBB would be the largest party in the Provinces Noord-Holland, Noord-Brabant and Overijssel. In the eastern province of Overijssel it scored 31% of the vote in the poll, which would be enough to win 17 of the 47 seats seats. No other party was projected to win more than four.
Coalition losses
All four coalition partners are projected to lose seats in the senate. Rutte’s right-wing liberal VVD is set to remain the largest of the coalition quartet, with 10 senators, while D66 and the ChristenUnie (Christian Union) lose one each.
Rutte acknowledged that the poll did not project ‘the gains we wanted’. He congratulated van der Plas on her party’s success, but added: ‘We are prepared to take responsibility in the provinces.’
The major losers are the Christian Democrats (CDA), whose traditionally loyal rural voters appear to have defected en masse to the BBB. The poll predicts it would lose five of its nine seats in the upper house.
The Conservative Liberal Prime minister of the conservative-liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (Dutch: Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie [ˈvɔl(ə)kspɑrˌtɛi voːr ˈvrɛiɦɛit ɛn deːmoːkra:ˈtsi]; VVD) congratulated Farmers Party BBB leader Caroline van der Plas on her party’s success, but added: ‘We are prepared to take responsibility in the provinces.’
Hoekstra: ‘Bitter pill’
Christian Democratic (CDA) leader Wopke Hoekstra described the projected outcome as an ‘extraordinarily bitter pill’ and ‘a landslide that we haven’t seen for years.’
The Social liberal (`progressive, Center Left) D66 leader Sigrid Kaag said the BBB had ‘managed to pull off a phenomenal result’ and said the election had been a ‘festival of democracy’. Turnout was the highest for provincial elections in 30 years at 61%, with several polling stations reportedly running out of ballot papers.
Kaag said she was satisfied with her party’s performance, even though D66 is projected to lose one of its seven senate seats. ‘We stand for our ideals and we are committed to achieving our progressive agenda,’ she said.
Two new parties are predicted to enter the senate: the hard-right JA21, who are set to win three seats, and pro-European group Volt, who could pick up two. The animal rights party PvdD also gained votes and could end up with five senators.
The Social/progressive liberal leader Sigrid Kaag congratulated the farmers’ party BBB with their victory. Her D66 and the BBB have opposing political views.
Forum slump
Geert Wilders’s anti-Islam Freedom Party (PVV party), the Socialists (SP) and the ultra-orthodox SGP are all expected to make small losses. The big winners of the last provincial elections, Thierry Baudet’s right-wing nationalist Forum voor Democratie, were the biggest losers this time. Their share of the national vote slumped from 14% to 3% after four years dominated by infighting, with 11 of their 12 senators defecting from the party. This time Forum is projected to take just two senate seats. Baudet told cheering supporters his party was focused on a ‘long-term project’.
The leader of the right-wing nationalist Forum voor Democratie Thierry Baudet told cheering supporters his party was focused on a ‘long-term project’.
Cheers,
Pieter
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