THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – Members of two left-wing Dutch political parties have voted overwhelmingly to join forces ahead of November’s general election in an attempt to unify their side of the fragmented political spectrum of The Netherlands, they said on Monday.
Green Left and Labor Party officials said a week-long referendum among their members showed the two parties strongly supported a plan to present a joint list of candidates and campaign on a joint manifesto.
In the last elections, the centre-left vote was split between the two parties and the more left-wing Socialist Party. Divided support helped usher in a series of centre-right or conservative coalitions led by outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
The Dutch caretaker government says voters will go to the polls in a general election on November 22. The announcement on Friday comes a week after Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s four-party coalition quit over its failure to agree on a package of measures to curb migration.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte says he plans to leave politics after a general election triggered by the resignation of his government.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has visited the king to tender the resignation of his four-party coalition, putting the deeply divided Netherlands on course for a general election later this year.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has announced his resignation and that of his cabinet, citing irreconcilable differences within his four-party coalition over how to curb migration.
The Nov. 22 election for the 150-seat lower house of the Dutch parliament was scheduled after Rutte’s latest four-party coalition failed to agree on a package of measures to curb migration and resigned earlier this month.
The House of Representatives is currently made up of legislators from 20 different parties, reflecting the divisions in Dutch politics and society.
“In a moment of mistrust and fragmentation and, above all, of being against each other, we say: ‘No, we do it together”, because we believe that things can be done differently and that things have to do otherwise. and that the Netherlands is hungry for air, for change,” said Labor Party leader Attje Kuiken.
Rutte, the oldest Dutch prime minister, announced this a week ago will leave politics once a new government is formed after the elections.
The Labor Party, once a strong force in Dutch politics, currently has nine seats in the lower house, the Green Left has eight. Both parties hope that their united front will win them more support than they did during the last election.
The leader of the Green Left, Jesse Klaver, called the merger a breakthrough.
“Finally, it’s the end of an era,” he said. “But today we are also ushering in a new era, saying goodbye to a time when it was just every man for himself, putting his own interests first.”
