Since the fall of the Dutch government in October the political circus has been gathering momentum. Just as the LPF, the List Pim Fortuyn had made a complete joke of itself after its stunning election victory in may, most of the pre-election color has come from them. After much internal wrangling, including attempts by some ex-LPF ministers to set up their own parties, the situation seemed to have calmed down a bit until the LPF got sued by some of its members. Their complaint was that the current leadership of the LPF had not been duly elected, and that therefore they had no authority to make any decisions on behalf of the LPF. Amazingly they actually won, and for a few days it seemed as though the LPF might not even be able to put up candidate lists in time for the election because of this ruling. They seem to have scraped through though.

Not content with letting the LPF get all the attention on the weird news front, the LN (Livable Netherlands) party also provided some amusement by appointing motivational guru Emile Ratelband as its top candidate. At best, the guy is a scary example of management consulting gone horribly wrong. At worst, he's not a very stable person mentally. His former wives have accused him of behavior that verges on the psychotic. His two sons he named Rolls and Royce. He also has the dubious distinction of having scored the lowest ever on political popularity since he got the LN job. No other politician of any party has ever had a favorable rating as low as his: 1.4 (out of 10).

The polls show that the LPF is headed for a massive loss, down from 26 seats in the current parliament to about 6 or 7. Still, this is a lot better than I had expected, because my initial reaction was to write them off completely. At the time of the fall of the government the LPF was down to 1 or 2 seats in the polls. So where are all the LPF voters going? The two other coalition parties of CDA and VVD are not benefiting much, gaining perhaps a handful of seats. The big winner is the SP, the Socialist Party, going from 9 to 24 seats in its most favorable poll, almost overtaking the Labor party at 27. Now, the SP is not your run-of-the-mill social democratic party. That is the PvdA (Labor). The SP is much, much further to the left of Labor and has always worn the mantle of a protest party. How far to the left? Well, calling them stalinist would not very far from the truth. Their party structure is modeled on the communist parties of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe before they were liberated. Their party program is one that would recreate conditions similar to those. If they had their way, it would mean a de facto end to private enterprise and the introduction of expropriatory taxation. In short, if the SP ever got into power here, I would be leaving the country very quickly.

So what happened to the LPF voters that they're switching from the right-of-center LPF (well, they never had a really coherent philosophy) to the far-left SP? It must be that most of the LPF voters were the protesters who felt disenfranchised and ignored. Pim Fortuyn gave voice to concerns over the assimilation and integration of immigrants, rising crime, failing health care and failing schools. It was more the fact that he dared raise the previously unmentionable issues that attracted the voters, who hoped that since he raised them, he could also solve them. The voters were not ideologically committed to his solutions, but were willing to give them a try. Now they're flocking to the next-loudest voice of protest, that of the SP, again without much regard for the actual ideology or program. They just want the issues addressed, and the SP is cleverly positioning itself as the champion of those causes.

The electoral arithmetic is getting complex now. The VVD and CDA do not want another coalition with the LPF, given the mess that the LPF made during the government's short tenure. But CDA and VVD don't have a majority in the latest polls, and would have to rely on some smaller parties. They might try to get the small left-of-center D66 party to join, but that would not be a comfortable fit. The "small right" parties of Christian Union and SGP are the Dutch version of the Religious Right, but that would not be a good fit ideologically either, bot would they have a sufficient number of seats. The Greens are out of the question, as is Labor. So that leaves the LPF again. Who knows what political necessity will bring?

The frightening scenario is a pure left coalition of Labor, SP and Greens. They're currently on a combined 60 seats, well short of the 75 they'd need, so the risk is not too high. A big coalition of CDA and Labor also comes up short, but the addition of the Greens or the D66 might make it work. On balance it looks like the Netherlands is going get a government that is considerably further to the left than the current one, unless the VVD and CDA can rise in the polls before January 22nd. But that is still an eternity away.