Amsterdam riots
On the 7th of November 2024, a football match between the Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Dutch Ajax escalated into violent street clashes. Maccabi supporters were filmed tearing Palestinian flags hanging from houses and chanting “death to the Arabs” on the streets of Amsterdam. In response, some pro-Palestinian groups called for attacks on the Israeli supporters. Seven people were sent to the hospital.
In an address following the violence, Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof condemned the clashes, placed the blame on pro-Palestinian groups and described the attacks as antisemitically motivated. He concluded by stating that the Netherlands has an “integration problem”. After the Council of Ministers meeting on 11 November, state secretary Anaas Achabar reported that many of the remarks during the meeting were offensive and Islamophobic. A few days later, Achabar announced her resignation as state secretary, triggering talks to avert a collapse of the cabinet. While the cabinet ultimately survived, several members of Achabar’s party, NSC (New Social Contract), also resigned. Among them was Femke Zeedijk, who stated that “discrimination had been given a face” for her.
This incident was just one in a series of cabinet crises that have plagued the Dutch government. In fact, this coalition probably now holds the record for the most cabinet crises in the shortest period of time. As Frans Timmermans, the leader of the opposition GreenLeft-Labour (GroenLinks-PvdA), put it, this coalition is “built on quicksand.” At the root of the perpetual instability in the Dutch state is a clash at the core of the Dutch right, and between the foundational Christian principles of the NSC and the right-populist policies of Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV). These clashes have eventually led to Omtzigt leaving politics for good and the collapse of his party NSC.
Childcare benefits scandal
The childcare benefits scandal (toeslagenaffaire) was a massive political scandal in the Netherlands. The Dutch government has a benefits scheme to help families cover childcare costs. However, from 2004 to 2019, approximately 26,000 parents fell victim to an excessively stringent fraud detection policy. Even very minor errors could lead to parents being classified as fraudsters. As a result, they were required to repay their childcare benefits, often amounting to tens of thousands of euros. Many families were unable to afford these sudden and overwhelming debts, which led to catastrophic consequences. Some lost homes or jobs, while others suffered severe mental health crises. Some children were even taken away from their parents. Institution after institution failed to protect these parents. Pieter Omtzigt was one of the MPs who stood up for the harmed families. And after a thorough investigation, the cabinet submitted its resignation in 2021.
Position Omtzigt, function elsewhere
Pieter Omtzigt was known for his meticulous research, earning the nickname, literally translated, the “dossier eater” (dossiervreter), and his willingness to challenge his own party leadership. This made him a liability to his party’s establishment; his party, CDA (Christian Democratic Appeal), was a member of the coalition he helped bring down when he brought attention to the childcare benefit scandal. Party tensions were demonstrated when Omtzigt narrowly lost the leadership election for the CDA to Hugo de Jonge. De Jonge resigned shortly afterward as leader, but rather than the leadership being given to Omtzigt, Wopke Hoekstra was coronated. According to a leaked internal memo written by Omtzigt, Omtzigt was promised that the leadership would have been offered to him instead of Wopke Hoekstra. The memo also claimed that Omtzigt had been the target of derogatory remarks from party colleagues, parliamentary staff and other MPs calling him a “psychopath”, a “sick man”, a “tuberculosis dog” (a common Dutch insult), “dickhead”, “crazy”, and “mentally unstable”.
In the March 2021 election, Omtzigt earned 342,472 preference-votes, almost as much as the party leader Wopke Hoekstra, who received 437,240. The Netherlands has a party-list electoral system, where parties receive seats in proportion to the number of votes they get. Voters can also cast a preference-vote for a specific candidate on the party-list. If that candidate gains enough preference-votes, they can move ahead of others on the list and still get a seat. It is highly unusual for the candidate who is second on the party list to receive almost as many votes as the party leader. Omtzigt gained so many preference-votes because of his work in uncovering the childcare benefits scandal, but this created significant tension between him and party leadership.
After the election, as coalition negotiations were underway, an internal memo by Kajsa Ollongren, a key figure in the ongoing negotiations – was made public. A press photographer had captured a picture of her walking out of parliament carrying a sheaf of papers, part of which was still readable. Ollongren had rushed out of the building because of a positive COVID-19 test. The memo included: “Position Omtzigt, function elsewhere”. It seemed as if CDA leadership and former prime minister Mark Rutte, the leader of the VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy), were actively trying to sideline the Omtzigt. Rutte denied speaking about Omtzigt. And, when notes were made public showing that Rutte had indeed discussed Omtzigt, he said that he had “no active recollection” of it. This was a trick Rutte’s employed often: claiming forgetfulness when he lies in parliament.
As a result of these all these conflicts, Omtzigt took a leave of absence due to a burnout and returned to parliament as an independent MP in September 2021.
A new social contract (the book)
In the run-up to the March 2021 election, Omtzigt also published his book “A New Social Contract”, sharing both its name and ideology with the political party he founded soon after. In the book, Omtzigt analyses multiple government failures, most notably the childcare benefits scandal, and argues that such failures indicate a broader systemic issue: a lack of transparency, accountability, checks on power, and an overreliance on economic models. Omtzigt (as one could guess) proposes a new social contract. A number of reforms are suggested: he proposes a constitutional court with the right to judicial review, reforming the election system, and more external checks on power. With these proposals he claims to want to increase transparency, strengthen parliamentary oversight, and strengthen the rule of law to guarantee that citizens’ rights are protected.
In line with this, he also argues that MPs should check the government, even when their own party is in power. Something that he was known for and had also already done when he worked for the Council of Europe. There, he uncovered a massive corruption scandal, and he went against his own party leadership in exposing it.
However, many criticize him for being a “processpolitican”. The Netherlands is already known for too much bureaucracy and NIMBYism. People spend years talking about plans, but very little actually gets built. Many projects get stuck in procedures, permits, and local objections. This slows everything down and makes existing problems worse. The housing crisis keeps growing, the nitrogen issue drags on, and the energy grid gets congested. And if all these checks are further expanded, as Omtzigt wants, the deadlock could become even worse.
New Social Contract (the political party)
New elections were announced for November 2023 after the centrist coalition, containing, among others, VVD and CDA, collapsed over a crisis prompted by disagreements on immigration policy. After initial hesitancy because he did not really want the responsibility, Omtzigt eventually decided to launch New Social Contract in August 2023. He emphasized “good governance” and governmental reform. Allegedly, he was so indecisive about launching a new party that his friends became frustrated with his indecision. His hesitancy became even more apparent when he declared that he didn’t want his party to become the largest because he wanted to avoid becoming prime minister. He preferred staying in parliament and holding government accountable. After all, that was what he thought he was good at. But he later changed his preference about the premiership, indicating that he would become prime minister, but only under the condition that his ministers would be non-partisan technocrats.
NSC quickly surged to the top of the polls. Not because of his party’s proposals but because of respect and pity for Omtzigt. He was seen as persecuted by the Dutch establishment and respected for his role in the childcare benefits scandal. The media quickly started calling him a kingmaker, even “Saint Pieter”, because of his sudden popularity.
Omtzigt probably hoped for a centrist cabinet including the VVD and GreenLeft-Labour, which NSC would then steer to the right. To this end, Omtzigt tried to come closer to GreenLeft-Labour leader Timmermans by organizing a debate with him during which they were both conciliatory to the other. But after VVD party leader Dilan Yeşilgöz announced that she no longer would exclude working with the far-right PVV, PVV leader Geert Wilders successfully made the election about immigration. As a result, the election became a competition between the PVV and GreenLeft-Labour.
The PVV won the election and gained 37 seats, GreenLeft-Labour came second with 25 seats, VVD won 24 seats, and New Social Contract came fourth with 20 seats. Omtzigt got what he wanted; he got a lot of (pity-)votes without his party becoming the largest. But the centrist coalition he desired was no longer feasible; the far-right PVV had clearly emerged as the winner of the elections.
Coalition formation
The most likely coalition was one between the PVV, VVD, NSC, and the BBB (Farmer-Citizens Movement). But both the VVD and NSC had serious reservations about cooperating with the far-right PVV, particularly because of the party’s proposals to ban the Quran, close Mosques, and restrict religious freedoms – all of which were in direct opposition to Omtzigt’s vision of good governance and strong rule of law.
By January 2024, negotiations between the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB had reached a stalemate. Omtzigt insisted on guarantees that the PVV would respect the constitution and refused to accede to many of the PVV’s sharply exclusionary policies on migration. The general atmosphere was extremely toxic; it didn’t help that party leaders were mudslinging online.
The negotiations finally collapsed in February. Omtzigt walked out of one of the meetings and invited three journalists to his hotel to announce NSC’s withdrawal from that formation round, citing new financial information about ministerial shortfalls as the reason for this. It turned out that the shortfalls were largely exaggerated, clearly not the real reason that NSC pulled out. The real issue was likely the internal divisions within NSC about cooperating with the PVV. Many of the MPs of NSC had a legal background and refused to entertain the PVV’s unconstitutional proposals.
Kim Putters, a former Labour senator, was appointed as the new organizer of coalition negotiations. In March, it was leaked that Omtzigt’s behaviour during these talks was unprofessional. Supposedly, he was emotional and regularly walked away from the negotiations crying. Later during an interview, he also burst into tears and walked away when asked about his behaviour. Eventually, the atmosphere improved (the leader of the BBB said that they had been playing card games to improve the relations), and the four parties agreed that they would form a variant of an extra-parliamentary cabinet which would contain ministers both with and without political backgrounds. Party leaders would remain in parliament and would not take roles in the cabinet. Wilders would not become prime minister; former national coordinator for security and anti-terrorism Dick Schoof became prime minister.
From crisis to crisis
The agreement was reached after 223 days, the third-longest formation period in Dutch history. By August 2024, only two months after the agreement, the coalition was already on the brink of collapse. Negotiations over the budget had revealed major fissures. The liberal VVD preferred increasing the welfare of those who already held jobs. The Christian democratic NSC prioritized welfarist policies. The negotiations revolved around decimal-point differences in the budget. They should not have been difficult to resolve. But Pieter Omtzigt’s stubbornness nearly caused a government crisis as negotiations continued until early mornings.
In September, Pieter Omtzigt had a burnout again. The number two, Nicolien van Vroonhoven, took over as party leader.
The second crisis happened barely a month after the first near-disaster. Leaders in the PVV wanted to invoke emergency legislation to bypass parliament and address the perceived migration crisis. The last time that emergency legislation was used was during the pandemic; even this was later criticized for being unnecessary. But the PVV persisted, threatening coalition collapse if they couldn’t invoke emergency legislation. Famously, ministers claimed that the people experienced an asylum crisis rather than that there actually was a crisis. There was a famous interview in a talk show where a PVV voter was asked how he experienced the asylum crisis, he answered that “you see it four or five times a day on TV”. Of course, NSC was against the emergency law which caused the second cabinet crisis. Again, NSC was stubborn and principled.
In November, Geert Wilders attacked NSC state secretary Folkert Idsinga for not making his financial interests public. However, the parties had already agreed during the formation that this was fine because Idsinga had distanced himself from his financial interests. Idsinga felt unjustly attacked and resigned as state secretary. This was caused by the two crises that came before. Wilders wanted to bully NSC because of his growing annoyance at NSC’s refusal to invoke emergency legislation. A complete lack of trust prevailed in the coalition.
After the aforementioned, Amsterdam riots after which NSC MPs and state secretaries resigned, Pieter Omtzigt came back again, but relations only seemed to worsen week by week.
All of this had taken out a major chunk of NSC’s popularity. Voters were fed up with Omtzigt’s stubbornness. The NSC dropped in the polls after every crisis. As of the writing of this piece, they poll at 2 seats – down from the 30 they enjoyed upon the NSC’s founding.
Trapped in principles
These crises stem from the same core problem; the NSC is trapped within its own principles. Its commitments to good governance and constitutionalism are at fundamental odds with Wilders’ policies. Most NSC MPs did not expect to work within such a right-wing coalition: in fact, a good number of NSC MPs were former members of more left-leaning parties, including the progressive Democrats 66 (D66). These MPs suddenly found themselves in a far more conservative party and cabinet than they were prepared for.
Omtzigt’s personality only exacerbated the situation. His indecisiveness and stubbornness make him difficult to work with. During a vote in March over parliament’s support of new EU proposals for rearmament after Trump’s bullying of Zelenskyy, the CDA, Omtzigt’s former party, and the NSC largely shared the same stance on the plans. They were in favour but opposed common European borrowing and the abandonment of budgetary rules. But, while the CDA voted in favour, the NSC voted against the proposal. The CDA then criticized Omtzigt, arguing that it trusted prime minister Dick Schoof to do its best to mitigate these concerns and that Omtzigt should not confuse the trees for the forest– that securing European security was more important.
Omtzigt does not easily come to trust others. This can redound to his favour – during the child benefit scandal or his discovery of major corruption in the European Council during his time at the Council of Europe. But his rigidity makes it extremely difficult to collaborate with him. This was precisely why the CDA and Mark Rutte did not want to work with him which led to the infamous “function elsewhere” scandal. Omtzigt kept getting burnt out: and the other parties, in the end, were probably not disappointed that they could negotiate with the party’s deputy leader, Nicolien van Vroonhoven, instead of the obstinate Omtzigt.
After this article was drafted, on the 18th of April 2025, Omtzigt announced that he was leaving politics for good. He said that he was “unable to recover” from his burnout and wanted to put his family and his health first. Being forced to work with the PVV clearly took a heavy toll on him. Van Vroonhoven has taken over as party leader and has already said that she doesn’t rule out a merger with the CDA – though this would only happen in the long-term. The fragmentation of Christian Democratic politics seems to be coming to an end. If the Farmer-Citizen movement (the BBB) also joins back with the CDA, Dutch Christian Democratic politics will have been restored to a state not dissimilar to where it was a few decades ago.
Because reaching consensus was so difficult, the current coalition has delayed crucial decisions. Where NSC aimed for good governance, they achieved exactly the opposite. The secretary-generals (the highest-ranking civil servant in a ministry) and bureaucracies ended up having an increasingly dominant role in ruling the country. In negotiating the spring budget, coalition leaders have pushed all the important decisions forward to be taken during these negotiations. But the parties have not even been able to decide on how much money they can spend, or how large the budget actually is. The coalition is once again paralysed.