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After some exciting weeks with a Holland-Turkey clash and serious fear around the uprise of populism, Dutch PM Rutte can call himself the winner with 33 seats of 150 in the house and the next 3 runner ups at 19-20. According to international newspapers he is the "hero of Europe" having drawn a line to "the wrong populism". Although his party lost 8 seats too, cabinet partner and left-winger PvdA took a very hard punishment of 29 seats to 9 for helping the Netherlands out of the crisis. Obviously their original supporters felt that they had to pay the price. Not entirely untrue, but unfair it is. The price would have been a lot higher without the impopular measures the now dimissionary cabinet had to take.

Populist Wilders, second in a tight race with christians (CDA) and democrats (D66), was disappointed and acknowledged already that he will take another round of opposition where he would "oppose the new cabinet as hard as possible".

Among others, German BK Merkel congratulated Rutte and is looking forward to continue the cooperation for a stronger Europe. However, the new cabinet is not there yet and it might take quite some time. Formation is only possible with 4 parties or more. Rutte's VVD would like to cooperate with close allies CDA and D66 but together they fall 5 seats short for majorities in the house and senate. A left coalition is possible but only with 6 and if the heavily hit PvdA is willing to step in again. Not very likely. So the King might have to wait a while before taking pictures. 

I wish "agile development" could be a format for cabinet formation as well. That would be some "democratic reformation" :) ... Stay tuned.

 

(big thanks again to Mirjam Vissers for another awesome cartoon)