Dem
47
GOP
53
We often get mail from readers who moan that they don't like either the Democratic candidate or the Republican candidate for some office and wish they had more choices. For them, the Dutch election of Oct. 2025 would seem like nirvana, with 27 parties on the ballot in most provinces. That certainly gave voters plenty of choice. For example, there were two different animal rights parties. If that isn't enough, it is relatively easy to start a new party. Very roughly, you need to file a form and pay a fee of about $500 and get 30 signatures per election district (of which there are 20) where you want your party on the ballot.
Not surprisingly, the October election results were very fragmented, with 15 parties represented in the 150-seat lower chamber, which has most of the real power. The upper chamber, the Senate, is kind of vestigial (vaguely like the House of Lords in the U.K.) and cannot initiate or amend legislation. The two biggest parties (D66 and PVV) each won 26 seats (17%) in the lower chamber (although the PVV split in two recently).
After the election, the hard part starts—cobbling together a majority. Excluding the PVV, an anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant party nobody else wants to work with, if the four biggest parties had formed a coalition together, they would have had a majority. However, they disagree on so many issues that this was impossible. After four months of squabbling, the first, third, and fifth biggest parties by votes (D66, VVD, and CDA) agreed to form a coalition government. The new prime minister, Rob Jetten, is gay, but nobody cares about that. The problem is that they have only 66 seats combined, 11 short of a majority. This means they will need the tacit support of one or more other parties for every bill and the government can fall at any moment if a majority of the MPs decide they have had enough. That would force a new election. It is going to be very difficult to govern like this.
There are many contentious issues facing the new government (and every government in Europe). Migration is one. Nobody wants poor immigrants from Africa and the Middle East, but some companies want skilled immigrants from India, China, and elsewhere.
Another huge issue is defense. Every government has gotten the message that the U.S. is now somewhere between an unreliable partner and an outright enemy. As one politician put it: "Our 80-year vacation from world history is now over." In other words, it is back to the regular order of kings, dictators, and territorial wars. This means a much stronger European defense is needed, potentially with a European Army in the future. But for now, defense spending must be ramped up and that money has to come from somewhere. The European Central Bank is not going to just start printing money because that would make inflation skyrocket. To raise more money for defense, the choices are increasing taxes (not popular) or lowering social spending (also not popular). Whatever choices the minority government makes is going to upset a lot of people and some of the other parties.
We have often written about how Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has trouble herding the cats, even though he has an actual majority (218-214 at the moment). Imagine that his party had only 74 seats (17%) in the House and together with his partners had only 191 seats and needed 218 votes to get anything through. Are you still sure you want more parties? Of course, the upside of an unstable minority government that can't do anything is that it is not generally a good basis for a wannabe dictator to get launched. There are a few exceptions, of course—Germany circa 1933 leaps to mind. (V)