A soup with different tastes

In the Netherlands have been elections recently.
People can choose from many different political parties.
To represent them in the Parliament.
The House of Representatives.

After these recent elections the following political parties are in the Dutch Parliament that has 150 seats.

The VVD, a right wing liberal party with 31 seats.
The PvdA, a mild socialist party with 30 seats.
The PVV, a right wing anti-muslim party with 24 seats.
The CDA, a Christian center party with 21 seats.
The Socialist Party, a left wing party with 15 seats.
The D66 party, a center liberal party with 10 seats.
The GroenLinks party, a left wing environmental party with 10 seats.
The ChristenUnie party, a conservative Christian party with 5 seats.
The Partij voor de Dieren party, a political party mainly defending animal rights with 2 seats.
The Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij, an ultra orthodox Christian party with 2 seats.

Because there are so many political parties without one having the majority, a Government can only be made when two or more political parties come to an agreement.
They have to compromise and merge somehow their political targets and principles.
This means that after elections, political parties start negotiating and this process is controlled by the Queen of the Netherlands.
She decides who will be in charge to invite certain political parties to start negotiating.



This method has two consequences.
First, it can be a lengthy process.
If political parties ordered by the Queen to talk to each other cannot come to agreements because they don't want to make compromises, fearing to disappoint their electorate too much who might then not vote for that party next time anymore, it ends in a dead end street.
And a new combination of political parties is ordered to talk and see if they can come to a compromise.
In Belgium, where they have a same system of making a Government, the country has been without a Government sometimes for over a year.
All that time political parties were talking and unable to come to a compromise.

The other consequence of this system is that a Government has never a one sided political program to rule from.
The agenda of a Government is always a mixture of plans and intentions depending on what kind of political parties came to a compromise.
It is like a soup with different tastes.
One spoonful is tomato soup.
One spoonful is bean soup.
Often it is said this is not good for a country.
When a dictator is in charge, like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela or Raul Castro on Cuba, they have a monochrome policy.
A very clear one way strategy how to run the country.

But in the end it all doesn't matter too much.
The Netherlands, in spite of its many political parties and the Government policies based on compromises, is a prosperous country.
It is rich, many people are well to do and the trains run on time.
Yes, fervent and loyal blog readers, we may wonder why a country like the Netherlands has in fact elections, a Parliament and a Government.
They could probably run it much better as a company.
By making every citizen a share holder having a vote which persons are elected in the board of the company.
Holland Inc.
And in the boardroom the Queen can serve the coffee.


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