The political system in the Netherlands is completely gridlocked, and neither a different cabinet nor new elections will solve that problem, according to Maurice de Hond.
According to the analysis, the cause does not lie with individual parties or politicians, but with the fact that the political system no longer aligns with population trends. This is illustrated by the results of the House of Representatives elections over the past 50 years, in which seats have shifted from the center to the flanks and a shift from left to right has occurred.
An additional complication is that the composition of the Senate increasingly deviates from the results of the House of Representatives, as was evident in 2019 with the FVD as the largest party and in 2023 with the BBB.
The current system, based on the democratic system developed by Thorbecke in 1845 and implemented by King William II in 1848, functioned well until twenty years ago. During that period, a clear majority in both Houses could be achieved between the centrist parties and either the moderate left or moderate right, but that era is over.
In 2013, De Hond delivered the Thorbecke Lecture, in which he already indicated that a new system was needed, featuring characteristics such as a directly elected Prime Minister who forms his government, the abolition of the Senate, and a corrective referendum to block government proposals.
Because a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers, nothing will change structurally without the threat of a major revolution. Nevertheless, the approach in The Hague can be different even without a constitutional amendment, enabling decisive governance.
Based on the current composition of the House of Representatives, De Hond developed this alternative approach: the largest party provides the Prime Minister — Rob Jetten — and all parties with more than five percent of the vote (D66, PVV, PRO, CDA, and JA21) join the government.
Ministries are allocated via a distribution key, whereby a minister and state secretary from the same party attempt to get laws and proposals passed in the House.
If that fails, the House can be overruled via a simple advisory referendum, making public support the most important component of decision-making. Coalition parties then agree to respect the outcome of such a referendum, just as a corrective referendum is possible when the House has adopted a proposal.
No constitutional amendment is required to work with these advisory referendums now, which are easy to organize using modern technology and are subject to strict requirements.
The situation is unfolding during a political crisis in which the country appears to be facing the fall of a cabinet for the third time within three years.
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