Cabinet of The Netherlands - Types

Types

There are different types of cabinets:

• A demissionary cabinet ("demissionair kabinet") is a caretaker government during the election campaign and the formation of a new cabinet.
• An extra-parliamentary cabinet ("extraparlementair kabinet") not based on a parliamentary majority. The last extra-parliamentary cabinet was the Den Uyl cabinet. It consisted of members of the three progressive parties (the social-democratic PvdA, the social-liberal D66, and the progressive-Christian PPR) and progressive members from the Christian-democratic ARP and KVP. It is contrasted with a parliamentary cabinet, which does have an explicit majority in parliament.
• A rump cabinet ("romp kabinet") is the continuation of a Dutch cabinet when it has lost a coalition partner, a form of minority government, where the cabinet has not become demissionary, but seeks support from a majority of parliament to finish the work that was already introduced by the cabinet to the parliament. Normally the Dutch Monarch will call for dissolution of parliament somewhat later, since the basis behind the coalition agreement is gone.
• A Broad basis cabinet ("brede basiskabinet") is an oversized cabinet or national cabinet. Between 1945 and 1959 several cabinets were formed in the Netherlands with more parties than necessary for a parliamentary majority. The first one of which was the Schermerhorn cabinet. Other parties were included to give the cabinet and its far-reaching proposals, like the formation of a welfare state, a broad basis in parliament and society. The core of these cabinets were formed by the social democratic PvdA and the catholic KVP, the Roman-Red alliance which by themselves had a large majority in parliament.