Second Balkenende Cabinet - 2006 Cabinet Crisis

2006 Cabinet Crisis

On 29 June 2006, a cabinet crisis erupted after cabinet member Rita Verdonk lost the support of the coalition party D66 over the Ayaan Hirsi Ali identity fraud controversy.

Hirsi Ali, VVD memebr and Member or parliament at the time, had signed a statement in which she expressed regret that she had misinformed Minister Verdonk regarding her name. On 28 June, Hirsi Ali made it known that her statement was coerced. In a parliamentary debate on 28 June extending into the next day, Verdonk and the Prime Minister maintained that the purpose of this statement was a legal one: Hirsi Ali was required to declare her intention to keep the name Hirsi Ali in order to retain her passport. However, in a crucial moment during the debate, member of parliament Van Beek asked the Prime Minister about the purpose of the apology. The Prime Minister answered that "it was a statement that the Minister for Integration and Immigration had to be able to live with". This was interpreted widely as a political deal-making by Verdonk at the expense of Hirsi Ali and not just a legality.

As a result, a motion of no confidence was initiated by opposition party GroenLinks against Minister Verdonk. Coalition party D66 supported this motion with strong words, stating that either the minister had to go, or D66 would leave the cabinet. However, the motion did not get a majority vote. On 29 June, the Prime Minister issued a statement declaring that the ministers unanimously declared that the rejected motion did have no consequences for the cabinet (as it was not supported, the minister was not forced to go). The chairman of the parliamentary D66 group, Lousewies van der Laan then declared in a new parliamentary session that D66 could no longer support the entire cabinet.

The apparent dissent between the D66 cabinet ministers opinion (that Verdonk did not have to go) and the D66 parliamentary group opinion (that Verdonk had to go) resulted in some tense hours where it appeared that the two D66 cabinet ministers Laurens Jan Brinkhorst and Alexander Pechtold had broken away from their party, supporting the cabinet but not their party member Lousewies van der Laan. However, in a reconvened parliamentary session later that evening, Brinkhorst announced that he and Pechtold had resigned and supported their parliamentary group in this issue. The apparent difference was merely based on legality: Since the CDA and VVD ministers did not want to dismiss Verdonk, the D66 ministers could do nothing but state the obvious legal fact that an unsupported motion has no legal consequence. The political decision to leave the coalition was subsequently made by the parliamentary group.

Shortly after, Prime Minister Balkenende announced that all remaining members of the cabinet would offer their resignations (portfolios) to Queen Beatrix. At the end of that day, it was expected that new elections would be called for October 2006 at the earliest.

In the meantime, VVD and CDA blamed D66 for the cabinet's demise: they argued that Verdonk did in fact respect the wishes of parliament when she ordered the re-examination of Hirsi Ali's passport position. On his first day as parliamentary leader of the VVD, Mark Rutte was furious with D66, labeling their actions as scandalous. Lousewies van der Laan countered that she wanted only Verdonk and not the entire cabinet to resign, and that it was about the coerced statement, which she interpreted as abuse of power by the minister. She blamed VVD and CDA for keeping Verdonk as minister.

The newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad (FD) on 30 June commented that it was highly unusual for a cabinet to resign after surviving the 29 June motion of no confidence. According to the FD, Balkenende made an "expensive miscalculation" and the coalition was not able to cope with "accumulation of governmental screw ups, ego maniacal told-you-so attitude and political profiteering". As Prime Minister, Balkenende should have steered his cabinet around the pitfalls. On the same day, the Volkskrant commented that D66 never was a strong supporter of this center-right cabinet and least of all a supporter of Verdonk. The newspaper described Balkenende as a poor leader with his ministers failing to acknowledge him. In short, the cabinet "slipped over a banana skin" according to this paper. NRC Handelsblad's main editorial praised D66 and put the blame on Balkenende for not being able to limit the damage to a single minister. The paper questioned whether the CDA should maintain him as their political leader.

The timing of the cabinet collapse was poorly chosen for the two remaining coalition parties: the economy was improving after 3 years of harsh reforms and little growth; finally, more people were working and unemployment rates showed a decline. The reforms initiated three years ago (one of them a 20 billion euro spending cut) were starting to deliver results. It was felt that CDA and VVD had not been able to benefit from it to its full potential. The polls had already showed improved voter support for VVD and CDA compared to the record-low results the year before. The 29 June Nova poll alloted 38 seats to the CDA, 31 seats to the VVD, and 3 seats to D66; a majority requires 76 seats.

With the collapse of the cabinet some of its initiatives became jeopardized: economic liberalization for gas utility companies, new rules for competition regulators, and liberalizations in the subsidized housing market. A demissionary cabinet would not have been able to tackle these issues but a minority government still could.

On 30 June 2006, the Prime Minister met with Queen Beatrix offering the resignation of the two D66 ministers and offering their portfolios to the other ministers. He expressed his preference for a minority government, a so-called rompkabinet. Maxime Verhagen of the CDA and Mark Rutte (VVD) also gave their support for this solution when they were invited for consultation with Beatrix. Two important considerations were imminent for them: the Dutch military NATO mission to Uruzgan, Afghanistan, and the decision on the 2007 budget to be made in September 2006. The main opposition leaders were in favor of a demissionary cabinet (without authority for new policies), and elections as soon as possible.

In an interview with NRC Handelsblad on 1 July, Alexander Pechtold raised his suspicion that VVD and CDA had already for a long time been prepared to drop D66 from the coalition in favor of the support by Pim Fortuyn List (LPF). According to Pechtold this explained the reluctance of VVD and CDA ministers to offer constructive solutions at the height of the crisis. The LPF expressed their support for a minority cabinet on numerous occasions, adding the irony that after the first Balkende cabinet failed in 2003 because of the destructive attitude of LPF, the same LPF was ready to replace D66.