With the election circus heating up ahead of polling day on January 22nd, the polls have shifted considerably since I last wrote about them in December. The biggest change is that the Labor party has been making big gains in the polls. The last elections were a complete disaster for them, when their parliamentary representation was cut in half. Now they seem to be making up for that and more. The latest daily tracker poll shows that Labor would now become the largest party in parliament, surpassing the Christian Democrats. This comes mostly at the expense of other left-wing parties, such as the hard-line communist SP and the enviroloony Green Left. Combined these three parties would have 62 seats, well short of the necessary 76 to form a government. So it's mainly a shift within the left-wing parties. The right-of-center Liberal party (VVD) has also been gaining some ground in the polls. It should have been the natural home of the disgruntled LPF voters, who could no longer put up with the farce that the LPF had become, but they don't seem to be attracting too many of them. It does not help that the VVD party leader, Gerrit Zalm is not particularly inspiring. He was also instrumental in bringing down the previous government, and I suspect that may play a role with ex-LPF-voters' reluctance to cast their ballot for him. Together the CDA and VVD would now have 70 seats, short of an overall majority. They both say they want to continue to govern, but right now they just don't have the seats. Add the LPF's 7 seats, and you might have a government, but neither the CDA nor the VVD is keen on having the LPF in a new coalition. I can't really blame them. It was the LPF's instability and farcical behavior that led to the fall of the Dutch government.

The most likely government, if thesee polls are accurate, would be a Grand Coalition of Labour and Christian Democrats. A new CDA, VVD coalition has been ruled out in advance, the left does not have sufficient support to form a government, so all that's left is the two biggest parties combining forces.

Whatever the outcome, I predict higher taxes.