Not voting this election? Then your vote goes to the VVD!

Writer: Koen Donatz

Do you already know who you are going to vote for on 17 March? Perhaps you have already gone through all the party manifestos, looked at all the candidates, and know exactly which box you will colour red next Wednesday. It could also be that you are still very hesitant between different candidates and different parties. Maybe you think: voting, why should I? There's no point at all, is there? Somehow I can understand that feeling, in the 2017 elections over 10.5 million people voted, so then it seems like your one vote doesn't matter that much. Besides, I certainly don't want to saddle you with clichés like ‘your vote makes a difference’, but I do hope to convince you in this blog that it is important to vote.

On reading the title, you might be thinking: why does my vote go to the VVD if I don't vote? Then let me explain that right away. The other day I spoke to a VVD member about the elections. He told me he thought actions urging people to vote were silly. His reason was that if everyone voted, the VVD would never become the largest party. That's why this VVD man thought it was best for people to stay at home on 17 March. Of course it's not true that the VVD will literally get another vote if you don't vote, but by not voting you do maintain the status quo. For the past 10 years, the status quo has been that we have had three VVD cabinets in a row.

So the question actually before us on 17 March is: do we want the VVD at the helm for another four years? If you don't vote, you answer in the affirmative to that question. The past ten years with the VVD in power have cost the Netherlands a lot. First, these have been ten years with far too little attention to climate change. If you search for ‘climate’ in the VVD's 2017 election manifesto, the first word you come across is ‘climate of settlement’ (no joke). In their current election manifesto, the VVD claims to want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 49% by 2030 (compared to 1990), but calculations by GroenLinks showed that the VVD will not achieve this goal with the measures proposed in the election manifesto. Second, the housing market is currently a mess. The housing shortage is currently 331,000, the largest since the 1940s. VVD policies have certainly contributed to this. For instance, during Rutte-II, VVD minister Stef Blok allowed the position of housing minister to ‘disappear’ and Blok was proud of it. [1] Third, the public sector has eroded well over the past decade. From primary education, to healthcare, to the police, huge deficits can be seen everywhere in the public sector. The VVD's neoliberal axe has cut in well.

Of course, it is not only the VVD that caused these problems. Climate change would have been a big problem even without the VVD, and the problems in the housing market and in the public sector are partly a legacy of the financial crisis in 2008. However, the VVD did exacerbate these problems, and has been unable to solve them over the past decade. The question is whether we want to give the VVD another four years to ignore climate change, ruin the housing market and bleed the public sector to death even further. My answer to that is a resounding NO! If you agree with me on this, then I have good news for you: next Wednesday you can make this answer heard loud and clear by voting!

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[1] https://www.trouw.nl/economie/zo-kwam-nederland-aan-een-tekort-van-331-000-woningen~b04d8d53/