Dutch politics. Left back

Date: 11/03/06

The Labour Party returns from the wilderness

THE revolution that erupted in the Netherlands four years ago may have ended this week where it began: in Rotterdam's City Hall. On March 7th, the voters in the local elections ousted the city's Liveable Rotterdam party, which in March 2002 catapulted its chief figurehead, Pim Fortuyn, a flashy populist, onto the national stage. Mr Fortuyn rode a wave of dissatisfaction over immigration, Islam and the elitism of the ruling Labour Party, only to be assassinated days before Labour lost the general election that May. His legacy of populism and anti-immigrant views has been a force in politics ever since, the more so after an Islamic extremist murdered Theo van Gogh, a film-maker, in Amsterdam in November 2004.

Yet despite this legacy, it was the Labour Party that rebounded this week. Not only did it sweep away Mr Fortuyn's old party in Rotterdam; in local elections all round the country, it beat the Christian Democrats and Liberals, the two main parties in the national government. So embarrassing was the defeat that the leader of the Liberals, Jozias van Aartsen, stepped down.

The presence of specific local parties makes it hard to see what these results mean for the general election due next year. But the voters are clearly turning left. It is unemployment, poverty, housing and bad traffic that now top their concerns, according to a poll on election day. Immigration and security, the two hot-button issues of the past four years or so, have dropped out of the top five.

This shift partly reflects painful reforms in pensions and health care that are hitting Dutch wallets. But there is also long-simmering dissatisfaction with the government's economic record, which has seen poverty and unemployment rising even as the traditionally generous social safety-net is unpicked. The Labour Party even seems to have won backing on immigration: in the big cities, the government's anti-immigration policies and its polarising rhetoric lost votes. In Amsterdam, the Labour-led local government won around a 40% majority. According to polls, 80% of Dutch voters of immigrant origin voted Labour.

The comeback of the left may not herald a return to its old ways--all parties have taken on parts of Mr Fortuyn's populist agenda on safety and immigration. The landslide victory in the municipal elections may also prove a mixed blessing for the Labour leader, Wouter Bos, who will now be treated as the inevitable successor to Jan Peter Balkenende, the Christian Democratic prime minister. Boring, neat and socially responsible may be how Dutch voters want their politics again. Mr Bos will be closely scrutinised on all three counts.