Dutch politics is hollowing out further

What do the polls say about the backing of the Dutch political parties?

This blog has pointed to the increasing fragmentation of the Dutch political landscape several times. The large centre parties ar losing voters. Parties with a stronger ideological profile are attracting more and more voters. The process is illustrated by the regular voting polls.

The last poll is from peil.nl (Dutch) from the first of February. Yesterday.

The biggest two parties

Traditionally the Christian Democrats (CDA) have the biggest share of the votes. Followed by Labour (PvdA). The CDA dropped to its lowest point since polls were held in 1952. The Dutch Parliament (Dutch) has 150 seats and the CDA would receive 28 seats. The PvdA would take 26.

The rest

There are now four parties which have between 20 and 28 seats. Another two parties have between 15 and 20 seats. Basically this means that no party has a strong core of voters that really stand by their party and agrees with its ideology. They can lose their function as intermediaries between society and politics.

Repercussions

Further this fragmentation means that it will get more and more difficult to built majority coalitions that can govern. Coalitions will be unstable due to the fact that they have to be put together from three or four parties.

Will the gains of Geert Wilders be timely?

Geert Wilders' Freedom Party has grown to 23 seats in the polls. This is due to his prosecution for hate speech against Islam. Whether the effect of this prosecution will still be noticeble late in 2010 when the next elections will be held, remains to be seen.