[Nettime-nl] Sarthak Baggchi vergelijkt de Nederlandse met de Indiase verkiezingen (in 'The Wire')

[Patrice Riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

(bwo Frederick Noronha, Goa India)


oorspronkelijk op:
https://thewire.in/119079/tale-two-campaigns-comparing-election-campaigns-india-netherlands/



From Social Media Use to Anti-Islamic Rhetoric, Similarities in Indian 
and Dutch Election Campaigns
BY SARTHAK BAGCHI ON 27/03/2017

While there are some striking similarities, the Netherlands’ 
participatory representative democracy highlights what’s missing in 
India, especially when the space for debate and discussion is 
increasingly under siege.

‘Beste Sarthak, Wat ben ik trots, en wat ben ik blij’ (Dear Sarthak, I 
am so proud and I am so glad), read the first line of the congratulatory 
email in Dutch sent to me by the leader of the GroenLinks party, Jesse 
Klaver. This email from the new and by now the highly popular leader of 
the green left party in the Netherlands is in continuation to many such 
I have been receiving from his party. I had signed up to their website 
as a part of a small study I undertook as a researcher observing and 
analysing the Dutch parliamentary elections. Having closely observed and 
analysed two crucial assembly elections in India – in Maharashtra and 
Bihar – as part of my doctoral thesis on informal politics in the 
country, I instinctively took to studying the Dutch elections to measure 
the contrast between Indian and Dutch elections.
There are, in fact, quite a few startling contrasts between elections in 
both countries, especially with regards to the size of the electorate, 
the nature of the party system and the electoral system used in both the 
countries – the Netherlands uses the proportional representation system, 
while India uses the first-past-the-post system. Of course, given the 
divergence in the economic and social structures of both countries, 
there are also remarkable differences in the issues that matter in 
elections. However, the kind of similarities one can witness in the 
campaign politics in both countries is indeed an eye opener.
In the recently concluded Dutch parliamentary elections, I studied the 
election campaign closely, following the campaign style and method of 
the GroenLinks. The party has a recent history of close to 30 years 
since its emergence in 1989 from a stitching together of four left-wing 
parties, including the Dutch communist party. Given its progressive and 
environment-friendly politics, the party is especially popular among 
young voters, and in the 2017 campaign, I could witness some of the 
tactics that the party used in spreading their message across in an 
energetic campaign.
The campaign ended up being a huge success as the GroenLinks registered 
a staggering win of 14 seats, up by ten seats from the four 
parliamentary seats it had won in 2012. While the party is ranked fifth 
in terms of the vote share, its 8.9% vote share is courtesy a huge 
increase of +6.6 % votes. In a total electorate of 12.8 million people, 
this number might not be a numerical extravagance like most of the 
elections in India, but this is certainly a significant indicator of the 
choices of the Dutch voters. With a record turnout of 80% voters who had 
the option to choose from as many as 28 parties in this election, an 
enormous 6.6% rise in votes for the green left party is definitely an 
indicator of the increasing popularity and relevance of issues related 
to environment and climate.
Issues in the election

The general media focus across the world was on the anti-immigrant and 
anti-Islamic rhetoric of Geert Wilders, leader of the right-wing Party 
For Freedom (PVV). The PVV, led by Wilders, was, in fact, leading in the 
opinion polls for quite some time in the run up to the election, forcing 
anti-immigration and anti-Islamic views to the mainstream of the 
election debates. The PVV’s view was that the tolerant Dutch society was 
being overpowered by an upsurge of incoming immigrants, especially those 
of Turkish and Moroccan origins, and the party vowed to cut back on 
immigration-friendly policies.
Dutch far right Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders campaigns 
for the 2017 Dutch election in Spijkenisse, a suburb of Rotterdam, 
Netherlands, February 18, 2017. REUTERS/Michael Kooren
Dutch far right Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders campaigns 
for the 2017 Dutch election in Spijkenisse, a suburb of Rotterdam, 
Netherlands, February 18, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Michael Kooren
If voted to power, the party also promised to shut down all the mosques 
in the country, in what was seen as a highly divisive and emotional 
appeal to the conservative right-wing supporters. Wilders, the leader of 
the PVV and the man who came to embody this (dark) side of the Dutch 
election, became the face of this kind of populist rhetoric. The 
abundant media coverage his politics attracted added these issues into 
the Dutch political discourse. This even forced the liberal party’s 
prime minister, Mark Rutte, to increasingly position himself close to 
this line of politics, which bordered on the thin wedge between 
inclusive tolerance and exclusionary rhetoric. Rutte’s party, the 
People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), finally emerged as the 
single largest party with 33 seats but lost eight seats and around 5% 
votes from its last performance in the 2012 elections.
While the green left party took advantage of this receding support base 
of the liberal party, another factor which helped the GroenLinks emerge 
stronger than ever before was the dissatisfaction among the voters with 
the Dutch Labour Party. The Labour Party, which was in the ruling 
coalition with the liberal party for five years, lost 29 seats and close 
to 19% vote share, as it struggled to connect with its supporters after 
major withdrawals on its election promises made in the last campaign in 
2012. A large part of the Labour supporters got drawn towards the 
charismatic appeal of the green left leader, who was being hailed as 
“Jessiah” during the campaign.
Jesse ‘Jessiah’ Klaver had a unique opportunity in his half-Moroccan 
background to showcase first-hand the successful integration of 
immigrants into the liberal and tolerant Dutch society. Even his 
mother’s roots were traced back to Indonesian origins. Talking about 
issues of clean energy, cutting down on coal thermal plants, laying 
taxes on the polluters, ending subsidies for fossil fuel usage and 
rewarding and promoting research and development of clean fuel sources 
instead, Klaver made an instant connect with the youth voters, many of 
them first-time voters. The increasing speculation and skepticism with 
which the rise of right-wing populism and its agenda of ethnopopulism is 
spreading across the western world, starting from Brexit to the Trump 
presidency, had a large number of young voters anxious and interested in 
the Dutch elections. Speaking to many university students in Leiden, 
this anxiety about the future of their country’s politics was clearly 
visible.
The campaign

There is definitely a visible difference in the campaigns of the Dutch 
and Indian election. Roaming around Amsterdam or Rotterdam, the absence 
of huge banners and hoardings covering the length and breadth of big 
cities is striking for an Indian researcher. Being used to the sight of 
huge hoarding and banners of Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar advertising 
their respective brands of development across the streets of Patna, I 
was struck by the absence of any such advertising in the Netherlands. 
Even the venues of the election debates of ‘meet-ups’, which many 
parties conducted to reach out to the voters, did not have any huge 
banners or hoardings encircling the venues. Many university students 
connected with Klaver through the ‘meet ups’ which Groenlinks organised 
actively across several cities in the Netherlands.
Taking to university students in cities like Utrecht, Leiden, Nijmegen, 
Maastricht and The Hague, these meet ups drew a large number of students 
and gave them an opportunity to listen to Klaver or other party leaders 
and interact with them. Party nominees like Suzanne Kroger, who was a 
Greenpeace activist before she took the plunge into green left politics, 
used these meet ups to not only interact with the voters who supported 
their policies but also to effectively persuade the floating and 
non-committed voters. Other parties like Democrats 66 (D66), Christian 
Democratic Appeal and Party for the Animals also used meet ups as an 
effective platform for reaching out to the voters.
The university spaces were also used effectively for organising debates, 
where all the party representatives came on one platform to speak on 
issues related to the election and voters, students especially were 
encouraged to ask them questions about their ideas and policies if 
elected to power. This is a vital aspect of participatory representative 
democracy, which is rapidly reducing in India as the space for debates 
and discussion in Indian universities is increasingly under siege.
The PVV, on the other hand, did not focus much on the dialogue and 
debates approach of campaigning. Wilders instead stressed more on a 
uni-directional flow of information declaring and setting the agenda 
from his Twitter handle, which has over eight lakh followers. Not 
leaving much to the imagination, the cover page of his Twitter handle 
has the words ‘Stop Islam’ written in bold letters. Wilders hardly made 
any public appearances throughout the campaign and attended very few of 
the television debates. In the absence of big rallies and election 
meetings, which dominate the political imagination in India, Dutch 
voters heavily rely on the television debates to listen to the alternate 
perspectives and decide on their voting choice.
Apart from the television debates, there is a computer application 
called StemWijzer (vote wisely) developed by the pro-democracy 
organisation called ProDemos. This application enables and assists 
voters to make a vote choice on the calculation of their position to 30 
propositions based on the relevant issues in the elections. The voters 
can use the application to record their preferences on issues ranging 
from immigration policy to jobs, healthcare, education and elder care. 
This preference list is then matched with the party positions on each of 
these issues. After this, statistical calculations are done between 
these policy positions to determine the party which is closest to the 
voter’s preference. Almost everybody I spoke to, irrespective of age and 
education level, talked about using the application at least once to 
determine their vote choice. This is in sharp contrast to the ethnic, 
religious, regionalistic, monetary and even clientelistic considerations 
that determine the vote choice of many Indian voters.
In the ground-level campaigning, the Dutch elections were remarkably 
bereft of any use of money, either to influence voters or to mobilise 
the campaign activists. The GroenLinks party campaign, which I closely 
observed, was very organic in nature as the campaign activists gathered 
on their own accord in a common meeting point in the evenings and split 
into teams of two or three to go for door-to-door canvassing for votes 
on pre-determined routes. The door-to-door canvassing in the Netherlands 
is not a common method for campaigning as in a highly individualistic 
Dutch society, one does not usually go about knocking on strangers’ 
doors without prior appointments. However, the GroenLinks decided to use 
this method to increase their visibility. Often the door-to-door 
campaigning meant talking to the door quite literally as many voters 
addressed the campaigners through their answering machines without even 
opening the door. A scenario quite unimaginable in India, where even 
low-key election campaigns draw sizeable crowd of spectators and 
onlookers. After the end of an evening of campaigning, the campaigners 
retired back in their groups to further discuss their strategies and 
plans for the next day of campaigning. However, there was no mention of 
any payment for food or fuel (for transportation) being provided to them 
for their effort in the campaigning. This again was in stark contrast to 
the Indian election campaigns, where parties and candidates are known to 
spend a lot of money on their campaign activists, feeding them with food 
and their vehicles with fuel for the entire duration of the campaign.
However, there is a lot of similarity in the social media campaigns 
across both the elections. Facebook, Twitter and emails are of course 
used systematically by the Dutch political parties in order to reach out 
to their voters in a big way. Indian political parties also use Facebook 
and Twitter, especially the Twitter handles and Facebook pages of 
prominent party leaders like Modi, Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal. 
WhatsApp messaging, on the other hand, is used with almost equal 
intensity in political campaigns across both the countries. The D66 
party had specially designed WhatsApp messaging lists with phone numbers 
of voters categorised according to their level of closeness to the party 
ideology. The goal was to use WhatsApp messaging effectively to persuade 
the swing of floating voters. The GroenLinks party especially called for 
the party sympathisers to become their campaign ‘Apptivists’ and 
circulate the party’s messages through WhatsApp. This bears resemblance 
to the extensive use of WhatsApp messaging groups by both the BJP and 
Congress to spread information (and also rumours and allegations) across 
voters in both urban and rural areas.
Engaging campaigning

The GroenLinks ended their enthusiastic campaign with a big ‘meet up’ at 
a concert hall in Amsterdam, which was attended by around 5,000 people. 
An equal number of people were watching the live streaming of the event 
on Facebook. This was advertised as the big campaign event and was a 
fitting conclusion to the hectic and vibrant campaign led by Klaver. The 
event was akin to the kind Modi had addressed at Madison Square Gardens, 
New York, or in Wembley, London. The stage was vibrant and exuded 
energy. The green colour was predominant in the display and in the 
lightings. There were rappers and musicians of immigrant origins who 
performed on stage to motivate people to vote and vote wisely. There 
were motivational speakers who reiterated the importance of making a 
careful vote choice, especially in the divisive times that we are living 
in.
Then there was ‘Jessiah’, who was greeted by an energetic crowd. His 
speech and body language were a mix of Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau. 
Klaver spoke mostly about the inclusive society that his party envisaged 
for the Netherlands and did not shy away from reinforcing the importance 
of the issues of climate and environment in these elections. He urged 
the voters to leave behind a cleaner, greener and fairer society for the 
generations ahead and a society which is inclusive and tolerant of 
everyone. This simple message delivered by a 30-year-old leader in a 
very unprovocative manner and with the utmost conviction did touch a 
chord with the large crowd, who burst into cheers in support of 
‘Jessiah’. The voting patterns on the polling day, less than a week 
later, proved the impact his message had among the voters, as GroenLinks 
emerged as the big surprise in the 2017 elections.
The GroenLinks campaign proved the importance of an engaging and 
energetic campaign in electoral politics. Despite having an easy to 
spread rhetoric and eye-catching slogans of ethnopopulism, the PVV could 
not perform as well as it was hoping to. Towards the end of a long 
fought campaign, the PVV election machinery lost much of its steam in 
the simple tweets of their leaders. His decreasing frequency of 
television appearances only added to the decline of the party’s 
popularity. It also helped that other right centre liberal parties, like 
VVD, soon caught on the bandwagon of the immigration anxiety and 
declared their strong positions on the issue, almost matching up in tone 
with the PVV rhetoric in the subtlest of forms.
The GroenLinks, on the other hand, used the anti-immigrant agenda as a 
starting point in their campaign but shifted gears at the right time to 
stress on the environment and climate issues, weaving them into the 
narratives of inclusiveness and tolerance of culture and diversity. In a 
manner, like Wilders, Klaver too mainstreamed the politics of 
environment and climate related issues. If India’s rapidly changing 
political discourse is leading up to a development model that can be 
communalised, then the Netherlands has shown how to bring the 
environment and climate change into mainstream politics.


The author is thankful to Dr. Ward Berenschot, KITLV for his assistance.

Sarthak Bagchi is a doctoral fellow at Leiden University Institute for 
Area Studies.
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