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Kornblith, M., 2013. Chavismo after Chávez? Journal of Democracy 24 (3),47–61.

López Ballesteros, F., Poliszuk, J., 2013. La maquinaria roja madrugó y nodio sorpresas. El Universal, 15 April. Available at: http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/elecciones-2013/130415/la-maquinaria-roja-madrugo-y-no-dio-sorpresas.

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E-mail address: holsteyn@fsw.leidenuniv.nl.

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Poliszuk, J., 2012. La maquinaria roja cumplió. El Universal, 14 October.Available at: http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/121014/la-maquinaria-roja-cumplio.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2013.12.007

The Dutch Parliamentary elections of September 2012

Joop J.M. Van HolsteynDepartment of Political Science, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 3 January 2013Accepted 4 September 2013

1. Introduction 2010 the highly volatile Dutch electorate (e.g., Mair, 2008)

On September 12, 2012, Dutch voters trudged to thepolls for the fifth time in the still young 21st century inorder to elect the 150 members of the Second Chamber ofParliament. The fact that the formal electoral cycle is fouryears demonstrates that since the meteoric rise of PimFortuyn prior to the elections in 2002, electoral calm hasnot yet returned to the Netherlands. None of the four co-alitions of varied composition under the leadership of JanPeter Balkenende (Christian Democratic Appeal/ChristenDemocratisch Appèl, CDA) during the first decade of thecentury managed to stay the full course of four years. In2003, 2006, and 2010, early elections were called.

By emerging as the largest party at the June 2010 elec-tions, the Liberal Party (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Demo-cratie, VVD) obtained the initiative in the difficult task offorming a new Cabinet. The party’s leader, Mark Rutte,eventually became the first Liberal Minister-President since1918. However, Ruttewas unable to break the pattern set byBalkenende and in the early spring of 2012 his Cabinet fellafter only 558 turbulent days in office.

That the first Rutte Cabinet did not manage to completeits full four years hardly came as a surprise. Or maybe thesurprise was that it had it had lasted as long as it did. In

had produced a political landscape that was so fragmentedthat piecing together a Cabinet that could count on a ma-jority of the seats in Parliament was extremely compli-cated. The final result of a trying and frustrating process ofexploration, information gathering, negotiation, and for-mation was unique for the Netherlands (e.g., Van Holsteyn,2011). The Cabinet consisted of ministers from the VVD andCDA, even though these parties did not hold majoritysupport in the Parliament. The new, unique constructionwas that, although not a full formal partner, this Cabinetwould be ‘supported’ (or ‘tolerated’, as a more literaltranslation from the Dutch word gedogen) by the FreedomParty (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) of Geert Wilders. Thusarose a variation of contract parliamentarism (e.g., Bale andBergman, 2006), which by its very nature can be termedrelatively unstable. Moreover, even with PVV support thethree parties could only count on the smallest possiblemajority (76 of the 150 seats) in the Second Chamber.Making matters worse, there was considerable resistanceparticularly within the CDA against collaboration with therightist-populist, strongly anti-Islam PVV.

That the Rutte Cabinet began its tenure in a period ofrecurring economic and financial problems certainly didnot increase its chances of survival. In the end it was theproblems arising from the fiscal crisis that proved insur-mountable. Beginning in early March 2012 the VVD, CDA,

Notes on recent elections / Electoral Studies 34 (2014) 291–379322

and PVV initiated negotiations concerning the substantialreduction of the government budget that would be neces-sary for 2013. These negotiations progressed jerkily andwith difficulty – and were aggravated onMarch 20, 2012 bythe departure of PVV MP Hero Brinkman form the PVV,which meant that the coalition had lost its majority – buttoward the end of April it appeared that an agreement wasin sight. Until on Saturday, April 21, Wilders surprised bothhis friends and enemies with the news that he could notaccept the budget agreement. The fact that the purchasingpower of those on government pensions would be reducedand that this according to Wilders was the direct result ofpressure from the European Union out of Brussels, was forhim unacceptable. Wilders departed from the negotiationsand withdrew his ‘support’ for the Cabinet. Thus any illu-sion of majority support for the Rutte Cabinet had definitelyevaporated. “Wilders throws country into crisis” read theheadline plastered across the entire page of the largestnewspaper in the Netherlands (De Telegraaf, April 23, 2012).Such a conclusion was perhaps a bit melodramatic, but ithad become certain that new elections would be necessary.After considering whether elections could be held on June27, 2012 before the summer vacation period, it was decidedthat a better date would be after vacations on September12, 2012.

The decision to have the elections after the summervacations gave political parties some extra preparationtime. This is relevant, since the extremely proportionalelectoral system facilitates participation for many parties,old and new. There is no formal electoral threshold, i.e., theelectoral quotient is the total number of valid votes dividedby the number of (150) seats in the Second Chamber ofParliament. In absolute numbers this means that the‘threshold’ lies at approximately 60,000 valid votes for thecountry as a whole. Since the establishment of new partiesis neither difficult nor expensive, time and again newparties are tempted to join the electoral game, and moreoften than not one or two new parties do succeed in gettingrepresented in Parliament (see Andeweg and Irwin, 2009).The election of 2012 proved to be no exception to this rule.

2. Party leaders, party manifestos, and the electioncampaign

That the PvdA (Labor Party/Partij van de Arbeid), a partytogether with the VVD and Socialist Party (SocialistischePartij, SP) that initially would rather have held the electionsbefore the summer, agreed to the September date was duemainly to the practical difficulties that new parties inparticular had in completing preparations for new elec-tions. However, this did not mean that the establishedparties were at all prepared and ready. Not only did theparties have to prepare new election manifestos, some hadto deal with the question of who would lead the partyduring the election campaign. For some parties it wasevident that the leader from the elections in 2010 wouldagain be pulling the car in 2012; this was the case for Rutte(VVD), Wilders (PVV), Emile Roemer (SP) Alexander Pech-told (Democrats 66/Democraten 66, D66), and MarianneThieme (Party for the Animals/Partij voor de Dieren, PvdD).On the other hand, for five of the parties that would

eventually gain seats at the upcoming elections, decisionshad to be taken concerning the choice of a leader. The partyfor older people, 50Plus, was new and had a leader in HenkKrol who also in electoral terms began with a fresh slate.

Among the larger, established parties, both the PvdAand CDA entered the elections with a new leader. Duringthe run-up to the previous elections in 2010 the PvdA hadplaced its confidence in the former mayor of Amsterdam,Job Cohen, as party leader and potential Minister-President.However, the PvdA failed to enter the Cabinet and Cohennever seemed in his element as a leader of the opposition.On February 2012, he announced his resignation as theparty leader, both in the Second Chamber and in general.Between March 7 and 14, the party organized an internalelection among its 52,000 members for the parliamentaryparty (and party leader). Five persons submitted theircandidacy. In order to guarantee a wide basis of support asystem of the alternative vote was employed, but thisproved unnecessary as in the first count Diederik Samsomachieved a majority of 54 per cent of the votes of the 68 percent turnout among the party membership.

For the CDA, the relatively unknown Sybrand vanHaersma Buma assumed the leadership of the parliamen-tary party in October 2010 when his predecessor MaximeVerhagen became Minister of Economic Affairs. Bumabecame a candidate for the leadership of the party and firston the list of candidates for the 2012 elections, but was notunopposed. For thefirst time the CDAhad decided to choosethe party leadership by a vote of the membership. The CDAthereby joined a broader trend among (Dutch) politicalparties in providing greater democracy within the party(e.g., Scarrow, 2000; Voerman, 2006). The CDA procedureprovided that if noneof the candidates receivedamajorityofthe votes in the first round, the top two candidates wouldparticipate in a run-off. However, it did not come to that, asBuma achieved 51 per cent of the vote in the first round andthus ended the race. Turnout among the membership was55 per cent. Buma defeated a surprising new face in theparty,Mona Keizer, who had been active in local politics andwas amedia favorite.Her rather surprising26per centof thevote of the party membership was eventually rewardedwith the second place on the list of candidates.

Another party that selected its new leader by a demo-cratic vote was GreenLeft (GroenLinks, GL) In December2010, Jolande Sap had assumed the leadership of the par-liamentary party when the popular Femke Halsema retiredfrom politics. It could have been an advantage for the partyto unite around the new leader for the elections, but Sapwas challenged by fellow MP Tofik Dibi. Despite the op-position of the party executive and the conclusion of thecandidate commission that he was not qualified, he per-sisted in his candidacy. In the vote by 56 per cent of themembers, he was soundly rejected as Sap received 84 percent of the vote. The impression of internal disagreement,sloppy procedures, and lack of party unity within GreenLeftwas only strengthened by these developments and doggedthe party throughout the campaign. Both of the orthodoxprotestant parties chose new leaders without directinvolvement of the party membership: Arie Slob for theChristian Union (ChristenUnie, CU) and Kees van der Staaijfor the SGP (Dutch Reformed Party/Staatkundig

1 The data for the opinion polls are from a ‘poll of polls’ called thePeilingwijzer, a pooling of polls resulting in a more robust estimation ofpolitical support (see for the basic idea Jackman, 2005). For theNetherlands this technique was adjusted and employed in 2012 by po-litical scientist Tom Louwerse (http://peiling.tomlouwerse.nl/p/methode.html); the results were published regularly in cooperation with the Dutchnational broadcaster NOS.

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Gereformeerde Partij, SGP). The latter took the baton fromBas van der Vlies, who had led the party for 25 years.

With elections approaching it was incumbent on allparties to prepare a new election manifesto. It is obviousthat herein the parties would make their own choices andformulate a more or less extended vision of society, but itwas also inevitable that in one way or another, each of theparties would have to address the continuing fiscal andeconomic problems and how they could be solved (for theparty manifestos, see Pellikaan et al., 2012). The partyplatforms discussed the question of the degree and natureof governmental budget cuts as well as the desired in-vestments that would help economic recovery in the shortor long term. The central message of some of the partieswas summed up in the choice of a title for the party plat-form. For example, the VVD chose “Don’t postpone, buttake action” and the PvdA selected “The Netherlandsstronger and fairer”. That in this context the PVV wished tostress the potential conflict between national interests andinterests within the European Union is seen in the choice ofthe slogan “Their Brussels, our Netherlands”. With theexception of the PVV it was perhaps striking that in theirplatforms most of the parties were relatively mild in theirformulations and indicated a willingness to search for asolution to the major problems that were facing thecountry and which could only be solved through a coop-erative effort (Trouw, July 9, 2012).

For more than 25 years the parties have submitted theirparty programs to the CPBNetherlands Bureau for EconomicPolicy Analysis (and more recently to the PBL NetherlandsEnvironmental Assessment Agency) for calculation of theeconomic effects in terms of aspects such as economicgrowth, employment, and consumer purchasing power. For2012 the Bureau assessed these effects for the plans of 10parties (CPB/PBL, 2012), i.e., for thosepolicies that thepartiesthemselves requested. That the parties may select which oftheir plans are submitted for calculationsmakes the result ofthe assessment rather less valid than for the party platformas awhole. In 2012, for example, the PVV emerged positivelyfrom the assessment, but the crucial proposal of the PVV forthe Netherlands to withdraw from the European Union andthe Eurozone was not included in the calculations. In addi-tion, the effects of a number of individual indicators arecalculated. This offers parties the opportunity to claim thattheir ownprogram scoreswell on a number of aspects of thecalculations. “Each party canfind something to brag about inthe numbers” was the headline that the newspaper NRCHandelsblad (August 28, 2012) placed above an overview ofthe most important conclusions of the Bureau and the sub-sequent reaction of the parties.

Still, the calculations of the CPB played a prominent rolein the short election campaign of 2012. The campaign wasconducted to a considerable extent via a series of televiseddebates between the leaders of the parties and centered onthree themes: the sputtering economy, the future of Europeand European integration in general and the position ofGreece inparticular, and theorganizationandaffordabilityofhealth care (e.g., Trouw, September 6, 2012). How to revivethe stagnant housing market was an additional element, aswell as the question concerning whether the age at whichone receiveda governmental pension shouldbe raised above

the current 65. Which combination of parties could, should,or would form a coalition to carry out these policies is arecurringquestionatDutchelections, althoughonce again in2012 the parties refused to commit themselves (Andewegand Irwin, 2009: p. 125). Who would become the newMinister-President is a related question, but without acommitmentconcerning coalitionpossibilities theanswer tothis question went equally unanswered. It has become con-ventional for the largest party (or at least the largest party inthe coalition) to deliver the Minister-President, but in 2012the answer to the question which party would emerge aslargest changed during the course of the campaign in ratherspectacular fashion as Election Day approached.

3. Opinion polls and election results

In the late spring of 2012 one of the national newspapersopened with the story “Election duel: Rutte versus Roemer”(de Volkskrant, May 26, 2012). The general opinion at thatpoint in timewas that the competition to become the largestparty, and therefore indirectly who would becomeMinister-President, would be between the VVD and SP. This interpre-tation held from the spring through the first half of August asthe campaign finally began in earnest. In the polls, the VVDand SP had by far the greatest support and the assumptionwas that these twowould bewaging a neck and neck race forwhich would emerge as the largest (see Table 1).1 However,by the days leading immediately up to the election onSeptember 12, the PvdA had staged an unexpected recoveryand replaced the SP as the main competitor for the VVD onthe left side of the political spectrum. The battle evolved to astruggle between the VVD and the PvdA, between Rutte andSamsom, who at the end of August had surely been virtuallythe only observer who still believed that his party couldsurpass the SP and possibly even become the largest (NRCHandelsblad, December 22, 2012). When the votes were tal-lied, it emerged that Rutte and the VVD had become thewinners, with 41 seats in the Second Chamber, the highestnumber the party had ever achieved. The PvdA had to settlefor 38 seats, but given that the poll estimates of only amonthearlier had indicated they could expect no more than 16–20seats, this was a highly satisfactory result for the social-democrats. The seats for the SP in earlier opinion polls, upto the end of the Summer, evaporated during the final weeksof the campaign and the party ended with 15 seats, exactlythe number the party had held from the previous election.D66 gained two seats and came out at 12, whereas theGreenLeft lost more than half its seats, falling from 10 to 4.This only aggravated the crisis within the party and shortlyafter the election, party leader Sap stepped down and leftparliament. The CDA,which as recently as 2006 had been thelargest party, lost another 8 seats and ended upwith only 13,putting it in fifth place, only one seat more than D66. The

Table 1Dutch Parliamentary elections in the 21st century, and poll-of-polls results in the run-up of the election of 12 September 2012.

Election results Poll of polls in number of seats (Peilingwijzer)

12 September 2012 2010 2006 2003 2002 14 Aug 2012 22 Aug 2012 29 Aug 2012 04 Sep 2012 07 Sep 2012 11 Sep 2012

Votes % Seats Seats Seats Seats Seats

VVD 2,504,948 26.58 41 31 22 28 24 31–35 31–35 32–36 32–36 33–35 33–37PvdA 2,340,750 24.84 38 30 33 42 23 16–20 17–21 18–22 23–37 27–31 33–37PVV 950,263 10.08 15 24 9 – – 14–18 14–18 14–18 15–19 16–18 17–19CDA 801,620 8.51 13 21 41 44 43 13–17 13–15 13–15 12–14 12–14 11–13SP 909,853 9.65 15 15 25 9 9 33–37 33–37 31–35 27–31 24–27 19–21D66 757,091 8.03 12 10 3 6 7 13–15 13–15 13–15 13–15 12–14 10–12GL 219,896 2.33 4 10 7 8 10 3–5 3–5 4–6 3–5 3–5 3–5CU 294,586 3.13 5 5 6 3 4 6–8 6–8 6–8 5–7 5–7 4–6SGP 196,780 2.09 3 2 2 2 2 2–4 2–4 2–4 2–4 2–4 2–4PvdD 182,162 1.93 2 2 2 – – 2–4 2–4 1–3 2–4 2–4 2–450Plus 177,631 1.88 2 – – – – 1–3 1–3 1–3 1–3 2–4 1–3LPF – – – – – 8 26 – – – – – –

LN – – – – – – 2 – – – – – –

Other 88,655 0.93 – – – – – 0–2 0–2 0–2 0–2 0–2 0–2Turnout 74.6% 74.4% 80.4% 80.0% 79.1%

Note: for election results Kiesraad Databank Verkiezingen; for poll-of-polls site public broadcasting organization NOS (http://nos.nl/dossier/365768-nederland-kiest-2012/tab/461/peilingwijzer)/blog Tom Louwerse (http://peiling.tomlouwerse.nl); for full party names of most relevant parties, see text.

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misfortune, however, did not hit the smaller religiousparties,with the CU maintaining its 5 seats and the SGP actuallygaining a seat, going from 2 to 3. The PVVwas anothermajorloser, falling from 24 to 15 seats. The Party for the Animalsheld its 2 seats, and the open electoral system allowed thenew 50Plus party to break into Parliament with 2 seats.

The results listed in Table 1 raise a number of questionsthatmust be addressedwhen the relevant data, inparticularthe Dutch Parliamentary Election Study 2012, becomeavailable. First of all there arequestions concerning electoraldevelopments from election to election. For example, theelectoral resurrection of the CDAat the beginningof the 21stcentury appears to be definitely a thing of the past and withthe decline in numbers of voters with strong religious at-tachments, the party has become no different from severalother parties in lacking a natural base to maintain the 40þseats that it once held. Twice in succession the VVD hasemerged as the largest party in Parliament and the partyseems finally, albeit still to a rather limited degree, to haveprofited from the fact that the largemajority of Dutch votersnow view themselves as secular middle-class. Despite thissuccess, and even though the PVV had less success in 2012than in 2010, it is clear that there is now a serious compe-tition for voters on the right of the political spectrum. Withthe presence of the PvdA, SP, GreenLeft and possibly D66,competition on the left of the political spectrum has forsome time been a given. A significant portion of the Dutchelectorate has a fairly equivalent preference for parties thatare closely related in terms of ideology and issue positions,meaning that at the time of an election a single votemust bedistilled from this choice set, probably based on short-termfactors (Irwin and Van Holsteyn, 2008).

A second cluster of questions that is posed by the elec-toral developments of 2012, concerns what can be termedcampaign effects, that is, those developments and eventsthat in the direct run-up to the election exercise influenceon the final or at least the intended choice of the voter. Thestrong revival of the PvdA and simultaneous steep declineof the SP are indicative of factors in this period of a few

weeks that can dramatically shake up the political balanceof power. In 2012 first reactions have pointed to the per-formance of party leader Samsom in the televised debatesin which his direct opponent on the left, Roemer, disap-pointed. Yet the fact that there are indications that theupward trend for the PvdA had actually begun before thedebates in the last week of August, leads to the conclusionthat there was more at hand than only the effect of thedebates. References to a presumed ‘charisma’ for Samsomversus the limited attractiveness of Roemer have littlecredence, since on the one hand evaluations and explana-tions that are easily made post-facto would hardly haveoccurred to anyone during the summer, but also because ingeneral because scholarly research has questioned whetherpersonal characteristic s have more than a modest influ-ence upon voter choice in the Netherlands (Van Holsteynand Andeweg, 2010).

The third point that will require the attention of re-searchers is attention to last minute electoral shifts. It mustbe noted that the final results for no fewer than three of theparties were outside the confidence intervals employed bythe opinion polls and the poll of polls that was based on themajor polls. VVD and PvdA ultimately performed above theupper margin, whereas the SP fell below the lower margin.Given that in the last days before the election the campaigncentered heavily on which party would emerge as thelargest party, the possibility of strategic voting by sub-stantial numbers of voters looms large. Strategic consider-ations are far from strange to Dutch voters, evenwithin theDutch system of proportional representation (Irwin andvan Holsteyn, 2012). Moreover, in this election, just as inother recent 21st century elections, the media gaveconsiderable attention to strategic voting. “A strategic voteis still possible” the NRC Handelsblad pointed out to itsreaders the day before the election (September 11, 2012),after Trouw a day earlier (September 10, 2012) had givenattention to the question “How do I vote strategically?”.According to a survey by polling organization Ipsos Syno-vate, no fewer than a quarter of the electorate employed

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strategic considerations in making the final determinationof the vote, something fromwhich both the VVD and PvdAprofited (http://www.ipsos-nederland.nl/content_asp?targetid¼1096).

4. Toward a new government

Call it ironic, but if the strategic considerations at theelection concerned the question of who would obtain exec-utive power and that the voterswho chose the PvdAwantedto turn left and the voters for the VVD wanted to turn right,then bothmust have looked askance at the result of a rathershort and quick process of Cabinet formation. The choicemay have been between Rutte and Samsom, but in the endyou got them both. For the result of these negotiationswas amajority coalition of VVD (41 seats) and PvdA (38 seats)under the leadershipofMarkRutte–whoonly shortly beforehad called the PvdA a threat to theNetherlands (De Telegraaf,September 8, 2012). In light of the unsuccessful experimentwith theminority government of VVDandCDAwith supportfrom the PVV, the fact that the PVV not considered a reliableand serious coalition partner, and that all other parties hadlost votes and/or were rather small, this peculiar majoritycombination of VVD and PvdA was considered the onlyrealistic political alternative.

The process of negotiation and formation that led to thesecond Rutte Cabinet was conducted according to newrules. On March 27, 2012, the Second Chamber, at theinitiative of D66, amended its own Rules of Order to in-crease the role of Parliament and reduce the role of theQueen in the Cabinet formation process, for example, in theappointment of an informateur. Thus, on the day followingthe election, in its debate concerning the results of theelection, it was the outgoing Second Chamber that deter-mined that Henk Kamp (VVD) would be requested toinvestigate what possibilities existed to form a coalition.After the usual round of consultations, in his report to theSecond Chamber Kamp advised that a combination of VVDand PvdA should first be attempted. The newly constitutedSecond Chamber passed a motion on September 20‘appointing’ Kamp and Wouter Bos (PvdA) as joint infor-mateurs. Barely a month later, on October 29, they senttheir final report to the Chamber and Rutte and Samsompresented the draft coalition agreement that had beengiven the title “Building Bridges”. Two days later, Ruttecould begin his work as formateur and shortly thereafter onNovember 3 he was able to hold the first meeting with hisnew Cabinet ministers. The Cabinet consisted of 13 minis-ters (7 VVD and 6 PvdA) and 7 junior ministers (3 VVD and4 PvdA). Samsom had himself conducted the negotiationson behalf of the PvdA, but chose to continue his politicalleadership of the party from the Parliament, rather than asa member of the Cabinet. An Amsterdam alderman, Lode-wijk Asscher, who has been tipped by many as a futureleader of the labor party, exchanged his position inAmsterdam for the post of Minster of Social Affairs andEmployment and vice-Minister-President in the new Cab-inet. On Monday, November 5, yet another new element inthe process was introduced when the installation of thenewministers by the Queen took place in public, broadcastdirectly via television and internet.

Anadditional newelement in the process of negotiationsdid not require a change of parliamentary rules, but wasagreed upon by the participants. This “political experiment”(NRC Handelsblad, October 30, 2012) in which no attemptwasmade to reachpolitical or substantive compromises, butinstead agreements were reached concerning exchanges.When one partner was granted a policy that was dear to it,the other partner could receive one of its favorite politicalpoints. In this way each partner could point to success inobtaining ideas that were important to it and could therebybetter maintain its own identity. That this “log-rolling”increased the speed of the formation process cannot bedenied, but it was also responsible for the fact that theCabinet almost fell before it could even begin its work (NRCHandelsblad, November 3, 2012; de Volkskrant, November 3,2012). One of the plans in the coalition agreement con-cerned plans for health care, in particular making theamount of the premium for health care insurance depen-dentupon the incomeof the individual. Thiswouldhavehada substantial equalizing effect on incomes. As calculationsbegan to be made and the size of the effect becomes moreapparent, the newspaper De Telegraaf became the spokes-person for opponents in the revolt against this proposal thatbegan to swell. “VVD inflames” cried de Telegraaf on its frontpage on November 2, 2012, even before the Cabinet hadofficially been installed. Rutte was forced to admit hismistake and bow to public opinion (especially among hisown supporters), and apologize that “he never should haveagreed to ameasure affecting incomes policy bymeans of anincome-dependent premium” (de Telegraaf, November 13,2012). No apology was offered by Rutte when in Decemberone of the new junior ministers, Co Verdaas (PvdA), wasforced to tender his resignation because of controversysurrounding his expense claims in a previous political po-sition (Trouw, December 7, 2012). And before the calendaryear had ended, Rutte was forced to provide an explanationfor the actions of another of his junior ministers. During the2012 election campaign, FransWeekers (VVD)had taken thesomewhat unusual step of running his own personalcampaign for a position in Parliament. This fairly modesteffort receivedfinancial support in a rather non-transparentfashion from some fellow party members, including at leastone who was accused of fraudulent practices in the munic-ipality in which he was an alderman. Because Weekershimself immediately issued a statement of regret andapology for the way things had been handled, no furtheraction was taken and he stayed in office (Trouw, December21, 2012).

In conclusion, if there ever was a time that politics in theNetherlands was dull and elections were predictable, thenthis period has definitely been set aside. With a fistful ofelections in ten years time and an equal number of Cabi-nets, times are surely changing rather too quickly than tooslowly. In a retrospective commentary on the year 2012, thenewspaper Trouw sighed “Let things in 2013 be stable”(December 28, 2012). How broadly this sigh is shared byDutch politicians, journalists, voters and citizens, is unclear.But that the near future will be one of political and electoralstability, must, given the recent past and the generallytense relationship between the VVD and PvdA, be consid-ered rather unlikely.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2013.09.001

The 2012 parliamentary and presidential elections in SouthKorea

Youngmi Kim*

Department of International Relations and European Studies, Central European University, Nador utca 9, Budapest 1051, Hungary

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 11 February 2013Accepted 23 August 2013

1 Mixed-member electoral systems are common in Asia’s democracies(most notably Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Thailand)but these systems have been strongly majoritarian in both design andpractice, and South Korea’s is particularly so (Reilly, 2007, 187–188). At

The 2012 parliamentary and presidential elections inSouth Korea ensured political continuity as the conserva-tive Saenuri Party (New Frontier, NFP) won, albeit narrowly,on both occasions. The previous local elections in 2010 andthe Spring 2011 mayoral by-elections in the capital city ofSeoul had shown high levels of dissatisfaction with the LeeMyung-bak administration (2008–2013). As a result, thevictory of the Saenuri Party in April and of presidentialcandidate Park Geun-hye in December caught many ob-servers of Korean politics by surprise. The electoral cam-paigns were marked by calls by both political sides forgreater ‘economic democratization’, a more critical stancetowards the Chaebols (the large industrial conglomerates,major actors in the national and global economy) and anarrowing of the socioeconomic polarization withinKorean society. 2012 was also a peculiar year in Koreanpolitics; as presidency and legislatures have different ten-ures (four and five years respectively) they are held in thesame year only once every two decades. It was widely

expected that the April legislative elections would providean indication of the national mood before the Decemberpresidential contest.

1. Electoral systems

The form of government in South Korea is semi-presidential, with the president elected for a single five-year term. Presidents are directly elected by simple plu-rality. The electoral system for the legislature (the NationalAssembly) is a mixed proportional system.1 246 legislatorsare elected via a first-past-the-post system in single-seatdistricts; the remaining 54 seats are distributed by

the same time, while the proportional component of the Korean electoralsystem has only a marginal impact on proportionality and thus insignif-icantly corrects for the majoritarian nature of the system, it still doesallow small and dispersed parties able to pass the 3% threshold to havesome representation in the parliament.