According to the Telegraaf, there was a marathon meeting in an attempt to hold things together. What follows below is a translation from our correspondent, HN.
[First, however, get the flavor of the Dutch from the first sentence of the story: Het kabinet van CDA, PvdA en ChristenUnie is gevallen. Doesn’t that gevallen seem much more final?]
From The Hague:
The Dutch coalition cabinet - the Christian Democrats, the PvdA (the Labor Party) and ChristenUnie (ChristianUnion) - has fallen.
The PvdA ministers withdrew support of the cabinet. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende announced this in the night Friday on Saturday. On Monday the cabinet would have been in office for exactly three years.
The ministers of the three parties had been negotiating since Friday morning, beginning about 11:30 a.m., about the future role of The Netherlands in Afghanistan. CDA wanted to continue the mission in Uruzgan. PvdA did not want to continue the mission under any circumstances. The PVDA insisted that the cabinet convey this to NATO.
According to CDA and CU this would conflict with the cabinet decision to consider all options for a longer stay in Afghanistan and only then come to a final decision. In a final attempt, Balkenende asked Friday night at 3:00 a.m.[Saturday morning?- D] that PvdA ministers agree on that, in order to save the coalition. Following agreement on this, a cabinet decision would be made before the first of March.
This was not negotiable for the PvdA. The PvdA ministers offered their resignation.
The BBC fleshes out the story with additional information on the troops in Afghanistan:
The launch in 2001 of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) for Afghanistan was the organisation’s first and largest ground operation outside Europe.
Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said six months ago when he began his job that his priority was the war in Afghanistan.
As of June 2009, Isaf had more than 61,000 personnel from 42 different countries including the US, Canada, European countries, Australia, Jordan and New Zealand.
So what happens now?
Here is our correspondent’s succinct explanation of what must, by law, occur next:
- - - - - - - - -
"Counting from Monday, elections must be held within 83 days. Which means municipal elections on 3 March, and somewhere between mid April to early May there will be national elections.
Which means that the municipal elections will be seen as what is going to happen. If you are left wing, it’s like going with a friend to the dentist and watch a root canal treatment without painkiller. Knowing your root canal will be pulled within a few weeks later on.
Wilders can, to my knowledge, participate in both elections. As long as he is not convicted he is a free man.I expect that this court case now will fade out. The court will no doubt find some kind of legal loophole to just postpone the case indefinitely without coming to a conclusion."
It’s astounding to an American on-looker that such a Damocles’ sword would be permitted to hang over anyone’s head. However, our correspondent seems sure that Mr. Wilders’ lawyer will make certain that it all comes to a satisfactory close.
I didn’t ask what he thought Mr. Wilders’ chances were of becoming the next Prime Minister.
But you, gentle reader, are encouraged to render your opinion on any and all of these events.
Personally, I’d like to be a fly on the wall in Mr. Wilders’ parlor right now. A fly who is fluent in Dutch, of course.
12 comments:
That was indeed some good news! I wish PVV all good luck in the coming elections and if God (not allah) is with us, may Geert Wilders be the next PM of Holland.
The night is darkest before the dawn.
The bastards scheduled the Wilders trial so as to be exploited around election time. Now they have sunk the trial and probably turned it into an PVV asset by painting Wilders as an anti-establishment candidate.
Oft evil will shall evil mar.
And all over a question of the lack of will to fight against the islamoid Talibs.
Its just out and out unbearably beautiful in symmetry, in timing, in irony, in justice.
Good morning Holland!
> Good morning Holland!
And lovelier mornings I have rarely had before. Thank you!
I don't think Wilders is likely to be the new PM. The political reality in the Netherlands at the moment makes that nigh on impossible.
But as of this summer he will be a force to be reckoned with in parliament. Of that I have no doubt.
What a lovely day this is going to be...
If the Freedom Party prevails, I hope that one of the first things they do is to have the so-called prosecutors of Geert Wilders arrested and tried for human rights violations. They have used the coercive powers of government to suppress freedom of expression and to influence the outcome of an election. Prosecute them.
I hope that one of the first things they do is to have the so-called prosecutors of Geert Wilders arrested and tried for human rights violations.
That could very well be done under the 'Right to fair trial' clause.
I don't agree that Wilders - if he ever becomes PM - should charge his prosecutors with human rights violations. While it would be ironic that his persectuors had made a noose for their own necks, it would only entrench the already distrastrous precedent of criminalising your political opponents, for speech or behaviour. The Christian Democrats et al. would be looking for revenge come the next election cycle.
When Wilders appearred on Glenn Beck's show one year ago exactly he proposed the repeal of all hate speech laws in Europe. That would be perfect. If he ever succeeds in striking the PC speech codes and show trial mechanisms from Dutch law it would become much harder for the CDU and co. to bring them back in the future. Aside from the Islamisation issue, this in itself is crucial to prevent a brazen tyranny from possessing Holland.
Aye. The best punishment for people like that is to make them watch as you take apart everything they've attempted to assemble. Poetic justice, since their own goal was to take apart everything good and replace it with their own perverse constructs. An eye for an eye?
Or a *nay* for an *aye.* One may hope, an explosion of nays for the disasterous, mean-spirited ayes of the past several years.
Sean, many forms of behaviour are, and should be, punishable.
One of those is to be part of the judicical system, and misuse that power to deny the accused the right to a fair trial. That undermines the Rule of Law as such, and is very dangerous.
There are many details in the Wilders case (lax security, denial of carrying witnesses etc.) that fall exactly under that clause.
Okay, Henrik. That makes sense.
Sean O'Brian sez:
"it would only entrench the already distrastrous precedent of criminalising your political opponents, for speech or behaviour. The Christian Democrats et al. would be looking for revenge come the next election cycle."
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Another example of muddle headed thinking. Criminal obstruction of justice, perverting the course of justice in order to eliminate a political opponent, is what our enemies are involved in. When the truth is no defense, there is no defense. When the political tools, the police and the judiciary, become complicit in crime they must be held responsible. That goes for the Nazi judges then and it goes now against those who sentenced Susanne Winter in Austria for telling the truth about Mohammed and Wilders inquisitors.
Perverting justice to eliminate a political opponent, that's what they are doing. Using the law to stop them from doing this "doesn't make us like them" and it doesn't allow them "to take revenge" on us.
On the contrary, they will fear to be held responsible for their actions. Does that make sense to you?
Congratulations, Holland. Now maybe some good things will happen.
GW for Prime Minister? Why the hell bloody not! May the PVV have many, many gains. There is nothing more that I amd many others would like to see is the Islamic tide in Holland be steamrolled and oblitereated out of the country.
There is a light at the end of the mussie tunnel of perversion and darkness.
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