Even with the VVD, things can go wrong sometimes

Parties come and go, but the VVD is never lost. No political party in the Netherlands usually has such high self-confidence. But lately, things have been different. VVD members see that things aren't going well. Just over two months before the October 29th parliamentary elections, there's a debate about party leader Dilan Yesilgöz. Polls are historically bad. Things could simply go wrong.

The party is trying to keep spirits up, observes Henri Kruithof, a well-informed former spokesperson for the VVD parliamentary group. But it's not the familiar VVD lightheartedness, he says, but "convulsive optimism." "It can't be any other way. You can't go out on the streets if you completely lose faith in the party. It's only human to block out negative sentiments in such cases. That's why I don't think Yesilgöz will be replaced by someone else; that would be the complete collapse of the party."

The VVD has been piling "blunder after blunder" for two years, says Kruithof, and this analysis is often echoed in the press. The VVD brought down the fourth Rutte cabinet over migration, opened the door to cooperation with the PVV, and, with Yesilgöz as its leader, is dragging itself from controversy to controversy.

This week's controversy: a sensational appearance by Yesilgöz on Tim Hofman's programme BOOS . It was supposed to be about online threats, but degenerated into a lengthy argument about her behaviour on social media platform X, in which she made accusations, retracted her words and restarted the discussion. The leader who has lost his way of a party that has lost his way.

Immune to collapse

Yet, for decades, some in the VVD believed that, as the only twentieth-century people's party, they were immune to what had previously befallen the CDA and the PvdA. For most of the last century, three movements shaped Dutch politics: the religious parties (KVP, CHU, ARP, and later the merged CDA), the social democrats (PvdA), and the liberals (VVD and D66).

At the time, the CDA, PvdA, and VVD were the three indestructible people's parties, with broad support bases and ideas rooted in a century earlier, the nineteenth century. And with an almost self-evident subscription to power.

This century has seen two mass extinctions of traditional popular parties. The CDA has steadily declined in recent decades and now holds five seats in Parliament, although there are hopes that Henri Bontenbal will reverse this trend. The PvdA, after a record loss in 2017, slumped to nine seats in Parliament and is now making a fresh start with GroenLinks.

Stable Rutte years

That won't happen to us, VVD members often said in recent years. In 2010, the party became the largest in the Netherlands, and the Rutte era (2010-2023) was one of enormous stability. This wasn't just because Rutte was popular. Liberalism is the most future-proof of the three old ideologies. At least, that's how VVD members saw it.

And there's some truth in that, says Gerrit Voerman, emeritus professor of parliamentary history. "Society has become highly individualized since the depillarization. The group and collective thinking of the other two ideologies has declined significantly in recent decades. I always told my students: the VVD is heading for a bright future."

But any party can collapse, Voerman knows, including the VVD. Two causes are needed: something must have been structurally wrong for a long time. For the CDA, for example, secularization played a role. And there must be an acute crisis that causes the whole thing to collapse. Consider the CDA's collaboration with the PVV, which led to major divisions and a leadership crisis that lasted for many years in 2010.

Leadership of Yesilgöz

The VVD is now facing this problem too, says Gerrit Voerman. There's a current issue at play: Dilan Yesilgöz's flawed leadership and the VVD's inability to break away from the Rutte years. At the same time, there's a structural problem. "On the right wing of the VVD, a persistent radical right-wing movement has emerged. This not only draws voters away from the VVD, but also makes the party uncertain about its own narrative. One strategy has been traded for another, from exclusion and distancing to emulating the radical right. They don't know how to relate to right-wing populism, and in doing so, they undermine their own position."

During the 2023 campaign, Dilan Yesilgöz "incomprehensibly" opened the door to the PVV, after years of ruling out cooperation. This decision brought the VVD's structural and current weaknesses together in a toxic way, says Gerrit Voerman. "And it remains inexplicable how even the most professional party in the Netherlands, with the most money and the best voter research, could have miscalculated so badly." The VVD has since returned to its old position: Yesilgöz announced in June that she no longer wants to govern with the PVV.

For years, governing without the VVD was practically impossible. Since 2010, no center-left or center-right coalitions were possible without the liberals. But VVD members feel their self-evident position of power has become precarious. The Peilingwijzer , the weighted average of Ipsos I&O and Verian/EenVandaag , now gives the party between 20 and 24 seats (the VVD currently has 24). But the trend is downward, and a few summer polls suggest a risk of a dramatic loss.

Henri Kruithof says: "I'm counting on ten to fifteen seats. It's too late now to change strategy or appoint a new party leader. And a major loss isn't necessarily a bad thing. It can be good for a party to go through a difficult period. Only then will they start thinking about a new narrative and a new strategy. That will take four, perhaps eight years, with a new leader. I've never believed the story that it can't happen to the VVD."