Today is Election day in Holland. We, “the people” get a chance to decide (more or less) who will run our country for the next four years. Off course it’s not an easy job to vote. Ever since the assasination of Pim Fortuyn in 2002 our country has been in an identity crisis. All the things we liked about Holland (tolerance, business sense, laid back way of doing things) seemed to have backfired and all the negative feelings are taking over. Racism (mostly against the Islam), distrust of politicians etc.. All things that obviously have been brewing underneath our social ‘skin’. Even I had a tough time deciding how to vote this year. So I did both online tests that show how my own opinions match with those of Dutch political parties. Well, the outcome of those tests where a bit of a surprise to me.
If you click on the image above you can see that I’m slightly left to middle on the political scale. Oddly enough both tests said that I should vote for the “Christenunie” a small religious, party. Well, I always say: “Freedom of religion should also means freedom from religion”. In other words: “over my dead body”. Religion has been the number one reason for war and trouble over the centuries. The idea that you’re doing ‘the right thing’ because some God tells you so, is just ludicrous.
Anyway: as I analyzed the results from the tests I saw that none of the questions in both tests really had any relevance towards religious issues, except euthanasia (which I am for and the Christenunie obviously is against). I am pro nucelar energy, I want more roads (I am stuck in traffic every damn day), I believe that those that earn more money should pay more taxes for social security (including myself), I believe that we should not yield to the thread of terrorism by cutting down on our privacy rights and I do not believe that longer prison sentences make our country safer or deter would-be-criminals. Neither do I believe that a free-market approach is the right way to run our health, public transport and energy systems.
I guess this odd combination did not match exactly with any political party, but in the end I just voted based on a political program and not because I like any politician in particular (Balkenende = bad, Wouter Bos = a sissy).
So who did I vote for? That is for you to guess and me to know. Afterall: we do have a privacy law in Holland that says that our votes are private to the government (and general public).
Ps: with the exit polls coming in fast, it seems to our current government gets the boot. However: since votes are scattered over six parties and none can form a the coalition they want (neither left-wing or right-wing) it looks likes it’s going be one heck of a job to form a new government.