The Netherlands has now been without effective government for over a year. It's been almost a year since Pim Fortuyn was murdered in the election campaign that followed the fall of the Kok government over the Srebrenica affair. While elections are pending the old government stays in office as a caretaker, but is allowed by custom to take any significant policy decisions. The same applies to the period after an election while a new coalition government is formed. Last May's election resulted in the historic win of Pim Fortuyn's LPF party, but that victory was squandered by the incessant bickering within the LPF. So while there was a "real" government in power fairly shortly after the elections of last year, it never got around to doing very much. It all ended in the fall of the government which in turn led to elections in January. All in all, the country has now been rudderless without an effective government for over a year.

A new government is still not in sight, as negatiations between the Christian Democrats and Labor have collapsed, and this after three months. They had to make the effort to try to form a coalition, since these two parties were the big winners of the last election, and they came pretty close to agreement. However, neither seemed very enthusiastic about actually forming such a government and it was the Christian Democrats who finally pulled the plug on the negotiations. One consequence is that the leader of the Christian Democrats, the current caretaker prime minister Balkenende, has suffered from a fall in his credibility. He apparently needed to consult with his followers every other minute during the negotiations, giving an impression of someone who's not really in charge of his own party.

The most likely outcome now is a second try at a coalition of the Christian Democrats, the right-wing Liberals (VVD) and the LPF. There are personal issues galore with this combination, since it was VVD leader Zalm who torpedoed the last coalition over the LPF's infighting. He thought he could harvest the LPF voters easily, but that never happened. So the LPF does not look favorably on him. At least in terms of party programs these three parties seem to be close to one another, making it easier for them to agree on policy than the Christian Democrats' abortive tie-up with Labor.

It's going to be a while yet before we get a new government. Is not having a government really such a bad thing? I definitely think we have far too much of it in the Netherlands, but the day-to-day machinery of the State continued to grind and grind finely in the absence of a policy-setting government. Meanwhile the economy is in a hole, crime is rising, education and health care have their own problems and the issue of the assimilation of immigrants has not been addressed. I hold little hope that any new government would actually tackle these problems effectively, but the status quo is not a tenable situation either.

More drift ahead, and plenty of rocks to hit.