Meanwhile, here in Clogland, the results from yesterday's General Election are coming in. PR is wonderful, intit?

With a handful of places plus the postal and international votes still to declare, PVV (Wilders) have 26 seats as do D66 (Jetten). The total votes counted thus far has PVV 2300 votes, nationwide, ahead of D66 as the largest party. The expectation is that most of the undeclared results will see little change in that difference. Where will the decision be made? Venray still has to declare and that is a PVV stronghold. Amsterdam is expected to see D66 do much better than the PVV. That leaves it up to postal/international votes and those results aren't expected until Monday evening or Tuesday morning. Quite why it will take that long I have no idea.

What does it all mean? I forecast when the current coalition was formed that it wouldn't last a year. It lasted 11 months. With the stance of the parties during the campaign on who would not be prepared to join in a coalition with certain other parties, the way the votes have panned out thus far, whether thoughts turn to a right wing coalition, a centrist (slightly left/right thereof) coalition or a left wing coalition, I can't see, and neither can the "experts" on the various election programmes, any coalition being formed unless they attempt a minority government. I am of the opinion that, if a coalition can't be formed, we'll be back at the polls inside 6 months. If someone tries to go down the minority route we'll be back inside 12 months. Whatever happens, the country has been at a stillstand for the past 2 years. Will remain so for the next few months while they try to form a coalition and pretty soon after that we'll be going back to the polls meaning another 4 months or so of still stand to the next election. The current cabinet fell on June 3rd, elections were yesterday. Ridiculous state of affairs that doesn't look like ending soon.

What a palaver and it shows the downside of PR.