Just had a quick check, I have 1057 candidates to choose from for ONE vote.
It's the Dutch General Election next week and we use PR to allocate seats in Parliament. It will be the first time I've been able to vote in General Election here. I've done local and EU elections in the past but not the GE. There are a total of 37 parties registered for the election, however, not all of them have registered for every district. In my district we only have 34 parties registered.
We received the candidate list today, Some parties have just the 1 candidate, two parties both have 80 candidates. You can probably imagine the size of the document. It's 3 feet by 2 feet (60cm x 90cm in new money).
Prelim results expected Wednesday evening, full results some time on Thursday. The current cabinet will remain in position until the coalition negotiations have been completed which could even be next year. Political journalists, looking at the political landscape, are envisaging a coalition 5, maybe 6 different parties. The current polls show that the 4 parties of the current coalition look like getting 80 of the 150 seats. If that is so, the new cabinet could be in place within 3 or 4 weeks. Hopefully it won't take as long as the Belgians who took 296 days following the 2019 election there.
Just had a quick check, I have 1057 candidates to choose from for ONE vote.
Pick number 623
Who is 666, Cummings or Williamson?
Get your money on Gert
It's Geert
His party will finish second the way things look at the moment. He may slip down the rankings though. Thursday night on the Jinek talk show, Thierry Baudet, leader of the Forum for Democracy and a veritable mini Trump, who is racist, has a head full of alternative facts and denies things even when shown the Tweet/WhatsApp he wrote it in.... had a tete a tete with another party leader. That got heavy at times but remained civilised. At the end of the show, a Dutch "cabaretier", Martijn Konings, (a carabetier is a "stand up comedian" who puts a view on current affairs witha twist of humour) had been invited to do a roast on Baudet. It turned out to be a humourless roast, in fact more of a concerted attack. Just before the end of the tirade, Konings brought Baudet's pregnant girl friend and unborn child into things. At that point Baudet got up and walked out. I was surprised he'd lasted that long as he has a record of doing just that with 2 pervious walk outs in the previous 10 days. I thought he was wrong in his previous walk outs but I'd have been more likely to chin Konings under the circumstances than to walk out. I'd like to point out that I have never found Konings to even be slightly amusing, let alone funny. Neither Jinek nor her staff knew the content of the roast pre show and it's a live show
Immediately after the show Eva Jinek phoned Baudet to apologise, as did her producer. When contacted by journalists the following day, Konings said he was not even thinking of apologising and that the unamusing 5 minute verbal attack on Baudet was exactly what he had intended. Baudet's party currently has 2 of the 150 seats in Parliament. They were on 4 in the most recent polls. There has been an outpouring of sympathy for him following the attack. I expect he will now get more seats, mainly at the expense of Wilders party but also at the expense of other parties. It will be interesting to see what the polsters say next week.
Cynics might say that the 2 are working in cahoots to get the sympathy votes....... either way, I don't think the tirade will harm Baudet politically. I'm not so sure Konings will come out of it unscathed.
Great to know
Whatever happened to "if you're not interested...."