Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy

Few people outside the Netherlands however could be blamed for having missed what amounts to a show-stopper in Dutch political life: the collapse at around 4am last Saturday of the country’s coalition government, sometimes dubbed ‘Balkenende IV’ on account of the fact that it is the fourth coalition to have been headed by Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende.

The additional fact that Balkenende IV is also the fourth of Balkenende’s cabinets to have collapsed might seem comical to anyone unfamiliar with the Dutch political system.

But for both political junkies and ordinary Dutch citizens, coalition government is not just a political fact of life – it’s a reflection of the famed (if perhaps not always accurate) Dutch predilection for compromise, as opposed to unilateralism.

Within this context, the most recent coalition – featuring the Christian Union (CU), Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and the Labour Party (PvdA) – is merely the latest in a long line of more or less improbable groupings.

Reasons for the collapse of the coalition

The collapse (or fall, disintegration, deliberate destruction – depending on which newspaper you read) of the coalition was ostensibly caused by a disagreement between the two Christian parties and the PvdA over future Dutch troop commitments in Afghanistan.

While the PvdA insisted on honouring an existing government commitment to bring Dutch troops home in 2010, both the CDA and CU were in favour of accepting NATO’s request to extend the Dutch commitment in Uruzgan, a province in central Afghanistan.

Almost as soon as the announcement was made by Mr. Balkenende that the coalition would be disbanded, political parties began in earnest the real business of blame-casting (or shifting), in preliminary maneuvering ahead of general elections, now scheduled for June 9, 2010.

A new caretaker government

A more fascinating spectacle, however, has been the parade of politicians who, over the last few days, have paid a visit to the Queen of the Netherlands. Queen Beatrix, as constitutional head of state, has the formal power to appoint a new government.

The outcome of Beatrix’s deliberations is that a caretaker government, composed of the CU and the CDA, has now been appointed. Known in Dutch as a 'demissionair', it is restricted to making non-controversial decisions, adding an air of uncertainty to politics in the Netherlands as a whole.

One thing that is certain, however, is that the process of holding general elections (not to mention the extensive ‘horse-trading’ that will be required in order to form a new coalition government) could take quite some time.