The Winners and Losers in a Turbulent Political Year

In this paper, some main lines of a turbulent political year will be sketched. In the autumn of 2001, the coming campaign was expected to be dominated by the contest between the two main governmental parties, the PvdA (labour) and the VVD (liberals). The political arrival of Fortuyn prevented this scenario to become true. Under the leadership of Fortuyn, the anti-establishment party Liveable Netherlands (LN) that started as a leftist populist developed into a rightist populist party. Fortuyn dominated the 2002 campaign and forced other parties to focus on his campaign themes. The success of Fortuyn's party seems to be in particular attributable to his viewpoints concerning asylum seekers and criminality. Balkenende and his party, the CDA, are the winners of the confusion caused by the arrival and the murder on Fortuyn. The elections of January 2003, after the quick collapse of the new cabinet Balkenende, did not bring about the desired majority in parliament for the CDA and the VVD. The CDA remained the largest party, but it was above all the PvdA, under the new leadership of Bos, which profited by the increasing priority that voters gave to social economic issues.