Formation
On 24 January 2003, Queen Beatrix asked Piet Hein Donner (minister of Justice for the CDA in the previous cabinet) to lead the coalition negotiations. The negotiations for the coalition were lengthy. Initially the CDA preferred to continue its right-wing coalition with the VVD, but they did not have sufficient seats in the House of Representatives to continue in government without the support of a third party. Another coalition with Pim Fortuyn List would be likely to be unpopular with voters after the events of the first Balkenende cabinet, and D66 was unwilling to join such a coalition. A government supported by the orthodox Protestant Reformed Political Party (Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij, SGP) and the Christian democratic ChristianUnion (ChristenUnie, CU) was opposed by the VVD.
A long negotiation between CDA and the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) followed. The PvdA and CDA had come out of the elections as equal partners. The negotiations were troubled by the invasion of Iraq, the bad economic forecasts and personal animosity between the leader of the CDA Balkenende and leader of the PvdA Wouter Bos. After a couple of months talks were called off by Balkenende. At this point, D66 decided to join the coalition after all. The cabinet was based on a very slim majority in parliament of 78 seats out of 150. When VVD MP Geert Wilders left his party on 2 September 2004 (continuing as a one-man party), the narrow majority of the second Balkenende cabinet slimmed down even further to 77 seats in the House of Representatives.
Read more about this topic: Second Balkenende Cabinet
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