by Kurt Zindulka
As Pro-Farmer Populists Threaten to Upend Establishment in Upcoming Elections
The globalist coalition government in The Netherlands collapsed on Friday evening, with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte tendering his resignation to King Willem-Alexander on Saturday, paving the way for elections to be held by November and the possibility of the populist pro-farmer BBB party to come into power.
The fourth government of Mark Rutte, 56, the Netherlands’ longest-serving prime minister, collapsed on Friday evening as coalition partners were seemingly incapable of coming to a compromise on the issue of migration and asylum policy. This marks the third time since coming to power in 2010 that a Rutte government failed to complete a full term in office.
The alleged dispute that forced the cabinet to collapse came over calls from Rutte’s neo-liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) to cut migration and increase restrictions on family reunification of asylum seekers in The Netherlands, a move that the more pro-mass migration coalition partner D66 and ChristenUnie parties could not accept.