Sensation! The nearest thing in the Netherlands to Donald Trump has ‘won’ the country’s general election. That is how the headlines described Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom winning the most seats.
In reality, it is much murkier than that. The House of Representatives contains no fewer than 20 political parties (including the Party for the Animals) and Wilders now has a devil of a job to forge a governing majority — if he can at all.
The negotiations could go on for months, leading the head of the country’s main business organisation to tell the Financial Times that the ‘instability around how our country is ruled’ is highly damaging to ‘the business and investment climate’.
This is a feature of countries with what is known as ‘proportional representation’ — as distinct from our own electoral method of ‘first past the post’.
In Poland, post-election negotiations to establish a government are well into their second month, with no breakthrough visible. This is as nothing compared to…
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