Another element that led to the breakdown of the right-wing coalition was the limited but important rise of combativity of sections of the workers movement and the growing political awareness of parts of the trade union movement. Seven years of
CDA-VVD government have led to a drastic redistribution of amounts of money have been transferred from the majority of workers to the benefit of profits and high incomes. People on social security have been particularly hard hit. In seven years profits have tripled and reached a level where some employers are beginning to fear a "backlash against busi-
Contract with employers' organization
In 1982, when the present leader of the social democratic party was still the chairman of the main trade union federation he signed a contract with the chairman of the employers organization. The trade union leadership agreed to limit wage increases to allow profits to rise again, in exchange for promises that these higher profits would be used to create more jobs. These jobs of course never materialized, and over the years the results of the sell out
1- have become clear to growing numbers of i workers. As a consequence workers and trade union leaders are less inclined to limit wage demands, now that everyone can see how much profits have risen. In the last twelve months nurses and other groups have launched struggles for a higher income, more jobs and against excessive workloads. Many of these struggles have achieved partial success. Today employers fear what they call a which may threaten their "profit
The possibility of a change of coalition after the elections scheduled for 1990, was therefore already being discussed among employers and in leading circles of the Christian Democratic Party before the disagreements that led to the fall of the government appeared. It is a not very well kept secret that prime minister Lubbers, employer and one of the more then 27,000 millionaires in the country, is himself in favour of a coalition with the social democrats, to avoid wage demands and to make it easier to get workers to pay for investments that are necessary to do something about the destruction of the environment. Lubbers says the PvdA has changed a lot and has become more "reasonable". He is not afraid that there will be a repetition of their so-called "big spender"
The right-wing liberals have lost fourteen seats in two successive elections, both after a period in which they were in lost five seats. ROBERT WENT year it was able to maintain its number of seats and remain the biggest party. The Christian democrats are overwhelmingly the dominant force on the right. They have managed to build a strong and stable elec-
Support for the CDA is today much less based on Christian ideology than before, although that still is a reason to vote for Lubbers for most CDA voters. But the CA also gets support from those with middle and high incomes, who are certain that the fact that they are doing well is a direct result of Lubbers' economic poli-
Non-believers vote for Lubbers
The number of non-believers voting for the Christian democrats has been growing since the beginning of the eighties. Only one percent of the membership of the CDA are non-believer. But in the last elections fourteen percent of non-believers — 450,000 persons, worth almost 8 seats — voted for Lubbers. That was again an increase in comparison with 1986.
The social democrats launched a big but empty campaign. Its main slogan was "It's high time for another policy". But it was not at all clear what concretely this meant. There were only marginal differences between the election programs of CDA, VVD, PvdA and D66. This was a deliberate choice by the PvdA leadership. From the beginning they campaigned for a
RESULT OF ELECTIONS
1989 votes percentage seats
CDA 3.141.157 35,3
PvdA 2.833.266 31,9
VVD 1.296.049 14,6
D66 700.863 7,9
Groen Links 361.274 4,1
Christ.right 361.457 4,1
Centrumpart. 81.215 0,9
Total coalition with the Christian democrats.
After seven years of opposition the social democrats are willing to pay almost anything to be allowed in government again. So to avoid complicated negotiations with Lubbers after the elections they made the necessary concessions in advance. Their opposition in parliament was already very weak and outside parliament the social democrats have been absent from the struggles waged by nurses and others.
In parliament and in his election campaign PvdA leader Wim Kok failed to explain where the money would come from for the new policies. Middle income workers were therefore open to the argument that they would be better off with Lubbers. Since no satisfactory answers were given to such accusations the social democrats failed to win votes among middle layers.
More votes for racist Centrumpartij
Kok also failed to get the main victims of Lubbers out to vote. The social democrats lost a lot in the old working class districts of the cities, where many people didn't bother to vote, in a clear rejection of the policies of the social democrats. That same feeling resulted in more votes for the racist Centrumpartij. That all this will not change automatically is moreover shown by the fact that the PdA's results among youth, where traditional party loyalties count less, were very bad: less than one out of four new voters voted PvdA, while almost one out of three voted for Lubbers.
After years of discussion and unsuccessful initiatives, the fall of the government and the early election finally impelled four parties to the left of social democracy decided to form a common slate. The crisis of these parties has resulted over the years in a big decline in membership, sup port and activities. The election result
1986 seats percentage votes 54 54 34.6 3.051.918 49 52 33,3 3.051.678 22 27 17,4 1.596.991 12 9 6,1 562.466 6 3 3,3 305.230
5 3,6 331.703 1 0,1 12.277 150 150 shows that their problems were not solved by their decision to cooperate more. The green-left slate only got 55,000 votes - that is, less than one seat more than the individual parties together in 1986, when they had their worst result and lost 5 seats. Even so, it is necessary to build a political alternative to the right and to social- democracy, and that will take time, initiatives and discussion. The limited but real growth of support for the green-left slate among youth, women, migrants and trade -unionists shows that there is a basis to begin to build it.
### Green-Left results disappointing
But it is also true that the green-left result is disappointing, and that more was possible. There were many political weaknesses in the campaign, not only due to the fact that the coalition was only recently formed. Groen Links built its profile mainly on the fact that it was "new" and "fresh" (which impressed nobody after the first weeks) and on its ecological proposals. This, apart from the fact that some of these proposals were bad, was too one-sided. Socio-economic issues only played a secondary role in the campaign of Groen Links. The necessity of a shorter work-week without loss of pay, of a wage increase for workers in the private and public sector and for people on the dole, of more money for tion.. such issues were kept away from the centre of the campaign.
Finally Groen Links created much confusion about the differences with the PydA. The social democrats campaigned to become the biggest party. They explained that the formation of a new government containing the PvdA depended on the relationship of forces with the right. "If you want the PvdA in government", Wim Kok said again and
NETHERLANDS again, "you have to vote for us. The government parties have to lose their majority, and the PvdA has to become the biggest, so that we can take the initiative in negotiations with Lubbers".
Ria Beckers, the main candidate of
Groen Links, had no answer to this powertalk, because Groen Links is also in favour of a PvdA-CDA coalition.
But it is obvious that there will only be minor differences between the policies of a CDA-PvdA coalition led by
Lubbers and a CDA-VVD coalition led by Lubbers. Groen Links should therefore call on the social democrats to build a real alternative to the policies of the right in the unions, movements and struggles. But because of their parliamentarist approach and because — as they say — "the new green-left approach must be realistic", they were trapped in the traditional lesser evil outlook of the PdA.
One seat majority for Christian democrats
The two government parties kept their majority, but a change of coalition is very likely. A majority of only one seat is not very comfortable, and there are, as explained before, political reasons for the Christian democrats to change partners. Lubbers has already begun negotiating and has announced that he wants to finish the talks on forming a new government in
Whether he will succeed is not yet clear, but there is every chance that he will. That doesn't mean however that the situation will be stable and without risks for the employers. Relations between the PvdA and the trade union leadership have diminished over the years. And the direct influence of the PvdA on the rank-and-file of the unions has decreased a lot in comparison with the sixties and seventies.
It is therefore doubtful that the PvdA will be able to force the unions into a new period of cuts and moderation when it comes to wages, social security and a shorter work-week to reduce unemployment. And the social democrats will have many problems in a coalition government if — as is by no means ruled out - there follows a new recession.
These are all reasons for activists and currents to the left of social democracy not to have any illusions in a CDA-PvdA coalition. Expectations about reasonable• ness and illusions about changes that will certainly not come, will only disorient the left and those who come into struggle.