So what happened?
1. Leftist Nova television program broadcast a special on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the religion basher from Somalia. Ayaan had been lying in order to obtain asylum status. Just as an estimated 95 percent of the asylum seekers. E.g. She had given a false name.
2. Iron Rita Verdonk revoked the citizenship of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In 24 hours. This implied that Dutch parliament had a non-dutch national in its midst, which made void all its deliberations in the past 3 years. Totally radical, dude!
3. The political class went ape. The "Left" demanded the resignation of Iron Rita and the "Right", the government, frantically tried to find a way to get out of crossfire.
4. The government consists of 3 parties. Liberal-Conservatives (VVD), Christian Democrats (CDA) and the Democrats '66 (D66). This last party is both left and right and is in fact the rudiments of a party based on a personality, who has left the national political scene due to age, drink and general fatness.
5. D66 just had seen a leadership battle between someone who won (otherwise unimportant so I won't distract you with his name) and Lousewies van der Laan, daughter of a Dutch career diplomat. Lousewies is a VERY ambitious member of the international political class. She lost the struggle for leadership of her party and was already making plans to go back to Brussels to interfere in peoples lifes from the lofty heights of the European Parliament. She was full of spite and the spirit of revenge. Hell hath no etcetera etcetera etcetera.
6. Verdonk had just lost the leadership battle of the Liberal-Conservative VVD against Mark Rutte. She was breathing fire. As usual, only more so.
7. The economy is picking up in a big way in The Netherlands after a very bad crash in 2000. This is good news for the rightwing coalition. They now would enter the time to harvest. They want to stay in power.
8. In order to cover her behind Verdonk demanded Aayaan to eat humble pie and sign a statement to the effect that Verdonk never did anything wrong when she declared Ayaan not a Dutch citizen. The statement said also that Ayaan had not lied about the name she gave to the Dutch authorities, as had been alleged, because according to Somali Family Code Ayaan was entitled to carry that name. That is so rich.
9. In order to keep the pasport, needed to keep her job at the AEI in Washington, Ayaan was happy to sign a statement that the moon consists of green cheese and 2 plus 2 equal 97. Hence: she signed. Ayaan is one of the few winners in this story.
10. Then there was a debate over Verdonk and the government cabinet had to defend Minister "Iron" Verdonk against a motion of distrust.
11. The PM defended Verdonk like a lion, all through the day and evening. He has a reputation for clumsiness and not being in charge. He was going to show them.
12. Then at 3 o'clock in the morning he slipped while being grilled by the Greens (Femke Halsema, Green Leader) and admitted that Ayaan's agreement (about the lies and the name and all) had been agreed to by the government, because Verdonk would not want to be humiliated too much. I wonder where our PM whose name I will not mention in order not to further confuse my foreign readership got his reputation.
13. The "Left". The Left consists of Labour, the ex-maoist Socialist Party and the Greens. Labour is doing well (nice leader), so is the Dutch version of the Shining Path (nice leader). But the Greens do not do too well, because their pretty leader Femke Halsema has sex appeal but no voting appeal, which just goes to show these two thing are not the same.
Femke "Halsje" Halsema
14. This little mistake by the PM gave Lousewies van der Laan a chance to get her revenge on life and all those ugly people opposing her. She sunk her knife in the back of our hapless, unsuspecting PM and the cabinet was dead. She supported the vote of no confidence by Femke Halsema against the cabinet. And because her party supports the cabinet and is part of it, that was a thrust of death.
15. Nobody supported Lousewies van der Laan and Femke Halsema. Everybody kept his powder dry and looked on, while Lousewies and Femke battled on to remove the hated Verdonk. Catfight!!!
Conclusion:
Now the coalition has fallen the Christian Democrats and the Liberal Conservatives have the perfect scapegoat. Lousewies of D66. D66 may well dissapear. Lousewies will somehow be parked in Brussels as a Europarliamentarian, it is a kind of Valhalla for national politicians who have not quite made it, but are a part of the political overclass anyway. And the salaries and perks are nothing to complain about.
Losers:
Christian Democrats and
Right-Liberals
Femke Halsema the pretty Green girl leader
Lousewies van der Laan the diplomat's daughter
Lousewies' party D66 which may well dissappear (oh, delight!)
Rita "Rusty and Blunt" Verdonk
And as usual: the common citizen.
Winners:
Labour and
the Socialist Party
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who found an exiting new sponsor, the American Enterprise Institute.
Next:
New elections will be held in November. Until then a provisional government will manage the political side of the country. If the economy keeps picking up the "Right" may not do too bad. Probably Labour will fare good as well and there will be a centrist government of Labour, Christian Democrats and Liberal Conservatives.
Nothing much will change. The days of political instability in The Netherlands are still not over. The country is not in a state of political chaos either.
Quandary, that hissing, restless state of the sea between ebb and high tide best describes our current situation.
Postscript:
Some astute commentators comment that according to the Somali Political Code, the Dutch coalition is still in power.
1 comment:
How come so few European countries have a presidential system of government, with a divided executive and legislative branch? We Americans never have governments failing every time there's a crisis of one sort or another. Or as in the case of Italy, every time someone sneezes.
Who chose that system of government for you - your ruling class? It looks pretty flakey from this side of the Atlantic.
Post a Comment