StMaartenNews.com publishes a review of the present political situation in The Netherlands and how this potentially can be good news for the Dutch Caribbean countries of the Kingdom. This article is published exclusively for our paying subscribers. If you don’t have a subscription, subscribe online here first.

PHILIPSBURG — A lying Prime Minister, a parliamentarian who asks too many tough questions and therefore has to be silenced, and hushed up investigations. Does this sound like the Netherlands? Not really, but still, all these things have been and are really happening in the political arena in The Hague. The once so solid reputation of the Dutch constitutional state is at stake together with the career of the country’s longest-serving Prime Minister Mark Rutte. The good news is that the political mess in the Netherlands spells good news for the Cairbbean countries in the Kingdom.

This is not only about the botched investigation into the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in the eastern part of the Ukraine on July 17, 2014, or about the decision not to prosecute Joris Demmink, a former Secretary General at the Dutch Justice Ministry, for the rape of two young Turkish boys in the nineties of last century. The child daycare allowance scandal at the Tax Inspectorate is also part of this story. And in all three cases one determined parliamentarian played the role of investigating pitbull: Pieter Omtzigt.

Omtzigt was relieved of his position as spokesman for the team that investigated the circumstances of the MH17-drama after he falsely presented a Ukrainian asylum-seeker as an eyewitness who had seen fighter planes near the crash site. Omtzigt constantly badgered Prime Minister Rutte, reminding him that he had promised answers and that those responsible for the crash would face consequences.

Rutte and Minister Wopke Hoekstra ordered Omtzigt to stop asking questions about the rape-accusations against Joris Demmink, a prominent member of Rutte’s VVD-party.

The scandal at the Tax Inspectorate was the cherry on the cake and Omtzigt was right there to keep asking tough questions. The scandal resulted in the fall of the third Rutte-government on January 15, 2021.

The Tax Inspectorate opened a witch hunt against parents its investigators suspected of fraud with allowances for child day care in 2014. Especially parents with a second nationality became the target of this operation, thus revealing that the inspectorate practiced prohibited ethnic profiling. Around 26,000 parents were affected: they were forced to repay tens of thousands of euros. Parents classified as “intentional / gross guilt” did not qualify for payment in installments. Many of them lost their homes, their jobs or their relationships and in the process the youth of countless children was destroyed. State Secretary Alexandra van Huffelen (D66) made 500 million euro available to compensate affected parents.

In the early stages of the formation process after the March-elections Omtzigt became the center of a new controversy after a photographer spotted a note written by formation-explorer Kajsa Ollengren that read “Position Omtzigt, function elsewhere.”

That sounded very much like an attempt to get Omtzigt out of the way. Prime Minister Rutte later denied that Omtzigt’s position had been a topic during a meeting of his Council of Ministers. But the recently released minutes of this meeting show that Rutte was lying.

Minister of Finance Wopke Hoesktra, like Omtzigt a member of the CDA, said in that meeting that attempts had been made “to talk sense into Omtzigt” but that this mission had failed.

Rutte later said that “nothing weird or improper” had happened during that meeting. The Second Chamber demanded that the minutes of the meeting be made public and under severe political pressure the government gave in. Normally minutes of meetings of the Council of Ministers remain confidential for 25 years.

The controversy surrounding Pieter Omtzigt has been overshadowed by questions about the position of Prime Minister Mark Rutte who seemed to be on his way to lead a fourth consecutive government after his VVD-party won the elections in March.

Gert-Jan Segers, leader of the smallest coalition-party Christian Union was the first to announce that his party would not take part in the next government if Rutte stays on as Prime Minister. “Discussions about getting a critical member of parliament like Omtzigt out of the way are an expression of a more profound problem, of an improper culture, of power that does not allow counter-power,” Segers told the Nederlands Dagblad on April 3.

Whether other parties will follow Segers remains unclear. D66-leader Sigrid Kaag is critical of Rutte but she has not explicitly excluded him. Other parties also keep all their options open.

Rutte is now, no matter how you look at it, politically damaged goods, even though he still has the full support of his party. That makes the road to a new culture of governance at least cumbersome and potentially impossible as long as Rutte, as the leader of the largest political party, remains where he is.

The political mess in the Netherlands has consequences for the Caribbean countries in the Kingdom. A weakened government also affects the position of State Secretary Raymond Knops. It seems that Knops has already dropped his hard-ball approach to St. Maarten by accepting the rather meaningless letter from the Parliament of St. Maarten about the United Nations petition and by releasing sorely needed liquidity support.

Knops is, as the number 5 candidate on the CDA-list, assured of a seat in the new Dutch Parliament but whether he will keep his position of State Secretary is rather doubtful. It is more likely that D66, the party of St. Maarten’s Jorien Wuite, will be calling the shots on Kingdom relations in the next government. That could be good news for the Caribbean countries based on the assumption that D66 will act less as an accountant and more as a social responsible partner towards the islands.

Hodie mihi, cras tibi

Opinion piece by Hilbert Haar

What can we learn from the political power games in the political arena in The Hague where coalition parties refuse to relieve a lying Prime Minister of his duties? Mark Rutte lied about CDA-MP Pieter Omtzigt after his government had already fallen over the child daycare allowances scandal. His VVD-party still won the elections in March but after his lies came to light coalition partner Christian Union (CU) declared that it would not take part in a next government with Rutte as prime minister.

Interestingly, a motion of no confidence against Rutte in the Dutch Parliament did not get a majority because the coalition parties, including the CU, voted against it. So Rutte got off the hook with a motion of disapproval and he stays on as outgoing prime minister until the formation of a new government is completed.

The VVD stands squarely behind Rutte for one reason only: it wants to be the driving force in the new government. Never mind that Rutte lied, or that he was part of a discussion about the removal of Omtzigt. When push comes to shove, the so-called bigger picture-argument comes into play. Doing the honorable thing and end up in the opposition as a result is not part of the VVD game plan.

All this has put the spotlight on the status of the Dutch parliamentary democracy. In that system, the parliament is supposed to control the government. The separation of powers – legislative, executive and judicial – becomes a dead letter if the executive starts thinking aloud about “positions elsewhere” for parliamentarians who keep asking tough questions the government does not want to hear, let alone answer.

While the makers and shakers in Philipsburg will not worry too much about the fate of Mark Rutte, they could use this opportunity to start wondering about the functioning of their own parliamentary democracy. Indeed, the idea was to create a dualistic system whereby the parliament would control the government. It has not worked very well ever since St. Maarten became an autonomous country in the kingdom on October 10, 2010.

This is because the formation process in St. Maarten does not follow proper procedure. And maybe it is because we do not have proper political parties based on a distinct ideology. Another explanation is that this is simply the inevitable handicap of a small community. When everybody knows everybody (and when everybody knows a lot about everybody) critical independent thinking goes straight out of the window.

Members of parliament are well versed in the Latin saying hodie mihi, cras tibi: what happens to me today, could happen to you tomorrow. That explains why there has never been any real opposition. And without real opposition in parliament, where coalition-MPs always support government decisions no matter what, there is no realistic balance of power.

There are no party-agendas in our parliament. Over and over again it has been proven that there are only personal agendas. If coalition-MPs do not get what they want, they drop their support for the government without giving it a second thought. Self above country has ruled St. Maarten like forever and no change in State Secretary for Kingdom Relations will ever change that.

Yes, the political turmoil in The Hague could give us a new State Secretary – one that is less determined than Raymond Knops – but the question remains whether this will be to the benefit or the detriment of the people who live here.

Don’t hold your breath.