Dutch Governing Coalition Upsets Polls, Is Reelected

The center-right coalition government of Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers upset the public opinion polls Wednesday in Dutch national elections and won a parliamentary majority that will give it four more years in office.

The outcome was considered a personal victory for Lubbers. His Christian Democratic alliance gained 5% more votes than in the previous election and won nine more seats despite a government austerity program that includes a reduction in social security benefits. He had also concluded a controversial agreement with the United States on the deployment of cruise missiles.

Further, the alliance emerged from the election as the largest single party in the new Parliament, overtaking the Labor Party with 54 seats to Labor’s 52. The Liberals, the junior party in the coalition, lost nine seats and will now have only 27. But between them, the coalition partners will have the same parliamentary strength--81 of the 150 seats.

The Communist Party, which had three seats in Parliament, was virtually wiped out, receiving barely one-half of 1% of the vote.

Setback for Den Uyl

The election was also a major setback for Labor Party leader Joop den Uyl, who was prime minister from 1973 to 1977 and has been the party leader since 1971. Although Labor increased its vote by about 3% compared to its vote in the 1982 election, it gained no seats, and Den Uyl is expected to give up the party leadership soon.

As recently as Monday, some public opinion polls were forecasting 54 seats for Labor, a defeat for the coalition and a prolonged period of political negotiation to produce a new government out of the 12 parties represented in Parliament. Because of Holland’s proportional representation system, there has not been a single-party government in the country in more than half a century.

Liberal Party leaders said they expect that negotiations with the alliance on a new coalition will take about five weeks, compared to two months after the 1982 election.

Economic, Social Differences

There is likely to be an argument over the distribution of Cabinet posts in view of the Liberals’ loss of nine seats in Parliament. And there will be differences to sort out over several questions of economic and social policy.

Since taking office in 1982, Lubbers has cut the country’s budget deficit to 7.8% of national income from 10.7%. But economic growth slowed to about 1.7% in 1984 and last year moved only slightly up, to 2.1%. Unemployment at 15% is the highest among the member nations of the European Communities, except for Spain.

The election will be welcome in Washington because it removes all doubts about cruise missile deployment here, which is scheduled to begin in 1988. Like Belgium, which has already taken its first 16 missiles, Holland is to deploy 48 missiles in all. If the coalition had been defeated and Labor had become the strongest party in Parliament, deployment of the missiles would have been open to question again.

The election continues a pattern of electoral stability in Europe that began to take form 18 months ago. Since then, incumbent governments have won in Italy, Greece, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden and now Holland. Only in France have the voters called for change.