IN MEMORIAM
PIM FORTUYN
1948 - 2002
Posted on 05/23/2002 2:26:52 PM PDT by knighthawk
AMSTERDAM - Murdered maverick Pim Fortuyn personally attracted more than 14 per cent of votes in last week's bombshell Dutch election, final data showed on Tuesday.
Over 1.3 million people ticked the dead man's name -- giving him 84 per cent of the votes cast for the three-month-old Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) populist party that took second place as the Netherlands shifted rightwards in the May 15 general election.
Fortuyn, who was gunned down nine days before the poll, still had his name on ballot forms because names could not be removed after an April deadline.
In Dutch proportional representation, voters choose from lists of parliamentary candidates. The vote for an individual candidate is also a vote for their party.
The opposition Christian Democrats (CDA) emerged victorious from the election in which the centre-left ruling coalition was routed.
Definitive results released on Tuesday showed the CDA won 43 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament and the LPF 26. The free-market VVD party came third with 24 while Prime Minister Wim Kok's Labour -- dominant member of the current coalition -- plunged to fourth place with 23 seats.
Preliminary results had put Labour and the VVD joint third with 23 seats each, but the complex arithmetic of the Dutch system ultimately reallocated one seat from the Green Links environmental party to the VVD.
Fortuyn, who was shot by a lone gunman near Amsterdam on May 6, shook up the Netherlands by calling for zero immigration and branding Islam "backward". Rivals called his views dangerous. An animal rights activist has been charged with his murder.
The hottest tip for the next government is a coalition of CDA, LPF and the VVD -- though the latter's new leader, Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm, struck a tough stance on Friday by saying the VVD's participation should not be taken for granted.
The long, slow process of building a Dutch coalition ground on as newly appointed mediator and CDA member Jan Piet Hein Donner held back-to-back meetings with party leaders on Tuesday.
CDA chief Jan Peter Balkenende, widely expected to be the Netherlands' next prime minister, said before meeting Donner that a CDA-LPF-VVD alliance would best match voter preferences, though other coalition combinations were possible.
Donner, who will talk to all party chiefs before reporting back to head of state Queen Beatrix, said he was working on the basis of a coalition of the CDA, LPF plus one or two other parties.
"In the first instance I will talk to all the parliamentary party leaders on the basis of a CDA-LPF combination. There are then many possible coalitions," Donner told reporters.
Once Donner has reported back to the monarch, she will select a so-called final mediator to usher in the coalition and name ministerial candidates.
Should a centre-right government fail to take shape during coalition talks -- which can take months of horse trading and consensus building -- a host of smaller parties could be brought in to shore up a coalition.
Fortuyn's lawyers have launched legal action against three politicians from the outgoing coalition and several journalists for allegedly inciting hatred of Fortuyn, an openly gay former academic.
Lawyers Gerard Spong and Oscar Hammerstein said Fortuyn had asked them to investigate if anything happened to him.
But Spong, whose name has circulated as a potential justice minister in the new government, has since suggested he might be prepared to drop the action if that would help him win a place in government, Dutch media reported.
Balkenende (VDA) got 2,2 million votes. Ad Melkert (PvdA, socialists) got 800.000 before he left as PvdA-leader.
The last part is not correct: Spong said on tv he was willing to withdraw his charge if it was for the good of the LPF.
IN MEMORIAM
PIM FORTUYN
1948 - 2002
>>Only one in seven? I guess they didn't import enough >>DemocRAT voters from Missouri ... who are known to freely >>give their vote on behalf of corpses
There's a certain amount of symmetry here, don't you think? We all know corpses often vote for live DemocRATs. It's only fitting that live DemocRATs vote for corpses. No?
VVD wants to join the coalition
VVD-leader Zalm said his party was prepared to join a CDA-LPF coalition. This was announced by Donner. Tomorrow Donner will hold talks with the leaders of the CDA, LPF and VVD.
Wednesday afternoon Zalm said he wanted to support a CDA-LPF coalition (minority government) and take part in the opposition. Zalm spoke thereafter for 1,5 hours with his party.
Until now Zalm denied he wanted to take part in a coalition.
If you keep his dream alive, you do him honor.
LOL! I think he was just kidding, left off his </ sarcasm> switch? 
One in seven? That's pretty impressive. The note about a vote for the candidate
is a vote for the party leads me to believe those folks were votin' the party !
And it is true: I would never post at the DU, not even to say rude things. ;-)
Could someone file me in on why nighthawk was going to leave FR?
I know, I am an optimist
I missed that thread, but I am glad you are still around. I wouldn't have known what was going on politically in the Netherlands if it weren't for your posts. I find it very interesting. I am glad that you are staying.
Please keep us informed of the situation there.
It's certainly a very pleasing development. I don't know much about the intricacies of your government, so I have a few questions. Is it likely that the ministry Beatrix appoints (as well as the judges) will lend themselves to the rightward shift in voter sentiment?
And what about the lower chamber of parliament? Isn't its membership held over from previous regional legislative elections when Kok and his minions were still in power? Is it likely they will go along with upper chamber legislation?
Lastly, do you foresee a resurgence of WD (liberal party) influence anytime soon? They are the only party in the Netherlands who even remotely resemble what I consider "conservative."
For anybody familiar with our respective histories, there can be no doubt about that. I, and others, may have our quibbles about the Hague, the NMPs and other matters in the Netherlands, but the fact is that the Netherlands (in spite of its long period of neutrality) is our oldest continuous ally, going all the way back to our War of Independence. You are the third largest investor in us, and we are the largest investor in you.
The USA get rid of the liberals and socialists? Maybe if we could clone Ronald Reagan 100 million times and bring them all into the country at once, like 'Star Wars', Episode 2, 'Attack of the Clones'.
Darth Hitlery and Count Da'shill would flee to another galaxy. ;^)
Balkenende (the CDA leader) spoke to the Dutch people in an interview and said he how had seen that things needed to change. He is young (46) and never really was part of the old system. He also knows if he doesn't please the LPF voters that eventualy voted for him, he will lose a lot of support.
The lower chamber (refered to as First Chamber) will probebly go along with a lot of laws. But they have still got power to counter the right coalition. But I doubt they will do it, except for far-going changes.
The WD? Do you mean VVD? They are the right-winged liberals. They lost voters to List Pim Fortuyn, and if the LPF will do bad, they will regain those voters.
If the First Chamber balks on Second Chamber bills, can they be over-ridden, perhaps by a 2/3 vote in the Second Chamber? If so, the new coalition would have to find another 7 votes from outside their ranks, wouldn't they? If not, then what mechanism, if any, is there for perventing the First Chamber from significantly obstructing the program of the new coalition?
I am also still wondering about Beatrix, the ministry and the judges.
(Yes, I meant the VVD. I suppose I should just accept the fact that I now have to wear glasses, LOL!)
Which means we also have a bond of blood. I'm sure you would have done the same for us.
I thought the First Chamber could not stop the forming of a coalition. Formily the queen (Beatrix) can. I will look around.
Knighthawk, you can call him "Dutch" Reagan.
My fears concerning the courts have been somewhat eased by noting that your high court does not seem to have the power of judicial review, as ours does.
It looks like alot of you in the NL didn't succumb to the left's brainwashing. The left has to be losing alot of sleep over that.
Where did they go wrong? They legalized drugs and everything. How could they lose? ;^)
I know that if the First Chamber rejects a law, it has to be changed so it can pass. The Second Chamber cannot override such a decision. But the members of the parties who are in the First Chamber are supposed to support the governing coalition, so usualy there are not much laws rejected.
There are also lots of complaints about the Frist Chamber, some question their expertise, some want to disband it.
The 1st Chamber is similar in some ways to what our Senate once was, ie. members selected by state legislatures and tending to be more conservative than those in our lower house who have always been elected at large. But I also realize that your 1st Chamber has much less power than the 2nd, is composed of part-time members who are paid about 1/4 of what the 2nd Chamber gets, and make their living in other kinds of work. In other words, they are not professional politicians.
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