Three opinion polls in the last days of the election campaign prove one thing beyond doubt: Dutch voters are bored of this election, bored beyond measure. And they have much to be bored about. A damp, tepid, defensive contest, micromanaged from start to finish, unexpectedly caught fire on Saturday when Maurice de Hond served up ..read more

A large section of the English-language media treats elections in Europe as a kind of Nazi-hunting Olympics, looking fervently for signs that the first domino of democracy is about to fall. If anti-immigration parties perform strongly in the campaign, it triggers a rash of editorials solemnly warning that the entire continent is backsliding into Nazism. When they fail to make a breakthrough, as they often do, the interest of the international press evaporates like morning dew ..read more

Personalities, rather than parties or policies, are the driving force of Dutch politics in the 2020s. A small number of social media stars dominate the headlines and the talk show tables. Many parties’ brand recognition is invested in the leader: Caroline van der Plas at the BBB, Jesse Klaver of GroenLinks, Geert Wilders of the PVV, Thierry Baudet of Forum voor Democratie ..read more

There are many curious things about Pieter Omtzigt’s decision to throw his hat into the ring for the Dutch general election. The first is that it took more than a month for the perceived front-runner to decide to take part at all. When he finally did, he immediately ruled himself out as a potential prime ..read more

Dilan Yesilgöz’s emergence as the likely successor to Mark Rutte as leader of the VVD party is the latest sharp twist in a rollercoaster political month in Dutch politics. Just 18 months ago she was appointed justice minister despite having no legal training and less than eight months’ experience in government as junior minister for ..read more

The decision by the justice minister, Dilan Yesilgöz, last week to formalise the ban on religious clothing in the police dress code was predictably absurd and absurdly predictable. Despite the minister’s protestations about preserving the neutrality of the uniform, the impetus for this did not come from the senior police ranks. The acting national police ..read more

Mark Rutte’s decision to delay the urgent reforms to the Dutch farming sector in the wake of the provincial election results is the political equivalent of a malignant tumour. At first glance it looks like a minor bump: it’s only when you zoom in and examine it in detail that the extent of the impending ..read more

It takes a special kind of political talent to finish a distant third in a two-horse race and still brush off the result as a minor setback, but that is essentially what Mark Rutte did after last week’s Dutch provincial elections. The breakthrough for the farmers’ party BBB was nothing more than a local setback ..read more

Something is rotten in the city of peace and justice. On Monday the leader of the largest political party in The Hague, Richard de Mos, went on trial alongside two colleagues and five businessmen accused of running a Tammany Hall-style political machine on the doorstep of Dutch democracy. Whether or not De Mos is found ..read more

The resignation of Gert-Jan Segers as leader of the ChristenUnie party was one of those political events that nobody expected, but in hindsight made perfect sense. Segers had been leader of the CU, the smallest party in the four-way Dutch coalition, since 2015, and explained in his parting interview with NRC that he never intended ..read more