Hi, I am thinking of studying in Eindhoven, there is a master’s degree I really like. I have been interested in the Netherlands for quite some time since urbanists think really highly of the country. I got the news of the far-right winning the first round of the elections and that got me concerned.
I would like to know how local leftists view the change, abject terror? or “whatever” we got a robust system they won’t be able to do much harm?
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I definitely see a lot of shock in my circles, but personally, I think we’ll have to wait and see what happens. It’s not a given that they’ll form a government, and even if they’ll do, they’ll have to collaborate with regular right-wing parties, so that limits the “damage” somewhat.
That said, housing is really problematic, and multiple parties have called for reducing the number of people coming here from abroad to study (and then not being able to find a place to live, or having to pay ridiculous amounts to do so). On the other hand, Eindhoven is a very international area, is very dependent on talent from abroad, and will certainly oppose that. The Greens/Labour party received most votes there (though PVV was still a close second), so like in most cities, you’ll barely notice the political winds in your personal life, I expect.
The have 37 seats in the house of representatives. There are 150 seats total, which means they need to work together with other parties to reach a majority. This means that both the PVV and the other coalition parties need to make concessions to be able to rule together. So I wouldn’t worry to much about everything changing in a short amount of time.
Eindhoven is already a really expensive place to live. The current housing issue will not be solved quickly, no matter what party leads. It is also pretty internationally oriented with the University and a couple large tech firms (most notably ASML). The international students/workers that I know in the area were happy with it.
The elections won’t change that landscape that quickly. Cities also tend to lean more to the left in general.
You can run this thread through translate for the “local leftist” view on feddit: https://feddit.nl/post/6724682
To be frank, although the far right guy ‘won’ the election, winning just means his party got the biggest and 75% of voters didn’t vote for his party. The second biggest party is a leftist one. He managed to capture a lot of the normally way more fractured (center)right wing vote but the entirety of the (center)right wing vote didn’t grow. And as with all populist politicians he managed to capture the “I am angry so I want to vote against what’s currently happening” vote that unfortunately never results into people voting for a leftist party focusing on combating climate change. The shortsighted vote was his with blanket promises of putting Netherlands first, better hospital care, more housing and less immigration.
I honestly have no idea what it’s going to mean for the country in the near future. A lot depends on what kind of coalition he is able to form (if at all) and if he’s going to be able to push through the stuff that’s written down in his election program. Stuff like a Nexit I don’t think is plausible, stuff like a crackdown on migration is probably going to happen in some form since that was a broader theme in this election.
