Asylum reform

In every country in the world, it seems that refugees are the lowest priority for any government. They don't vote, are powerless and a general nuisance which is best ignored it seems. The Dutch are no exception to this. In 2000 a new law was adopted that assured that asylum seekers would be "processed" quickly. That is, aspiring asylym seekers would know within at most a few months whether or not they would be admitted to the Netherlands with a refugee status.

In spite of all good intentions, completely predictably, this has turned out to be an illusion. Even under the new law, people can wait for a definite decision for years.

The new Dutch government

Nobody took me up on my bet on the new Dutch government. Turns out that I was incredibly wrong. I am eating my humble pie. I really thought it would be impossible to form a new stable coalition, but it looks like they pulled it off anyway. One of my MA students who also pursues an MA in political science told me that he would have predicted this right after the election, as the 'ideological distance' between the new coalition partners was the least of all possible coallitions. I thought that even the smallest 'ideological distance' (and, no, I am not going to explain what that is -- I am not even sure myself) would be too big to bridge. But no; the Netherworld remains a governable state... Incidentally, the new coalition will be formed by the social-democrates, the Christian-democrats and a small orthodox Christian party. Can you blame me for my initial incredulity? Oh, and I refrain from offering any wagers on how long it will exist...

Dutch elections

I have not commented yet on the recent Dutch elections and we have had our first constitutional quasi-crisis already. The results of the elections are baffling. It looks as if the electorate is becoming more and more polarized. To abuse a term of the French political philosoher, Claude Lefort, 'the middle is empty'. (NB: before somebody accuses me of using an oxymoron by putting together in one sentence the words 'French' and 'philosopher' -- I never claimed he was a good philosopher!)

So this leads me to the following wager. We will have long, long negotiations to form a new coalition government. In the end, it will not be possible to have a government that can rule with a decent majority in parliament. As a result we will have a 'zakenkabinet' -- a government consisting of non-political ministers who will rule for a while and then call for new elections. I predict that these new elections will follow by the end of 2008, early 2009 the latest. I wager a good bottle of Australian shiraz (no wait, I will drink that before that time), ok, a good bottle of German Riesling or Sylvaner (yes it exists!). Any takers?