THE ENDS MEET:

Dutch Voters Favor Prime Minister's Christian Democrats: Extremists Also Gain Power in Parliament (Molly Moore, 11/23/06, Washington Post)

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's right-of-center Christian Democratic Appeal party, which has led efforts to curtail Muslim immigration at a time of growing xenophobia in the Netherlands, won the most seats in parliamentary elections Wednesday, but voters voiced strong discontent with his government by giving unprecedented support to extremist parties at both ends of the political spectrum.

After half a decade of politically motivated murders and some of Europe's most acrimonious debate over the rapid influx of immigrants into this once homogenous country, election results reflected a public schizophrenia over how to resolve the country's problems and laid a political minefield for creating a coalition that can effectively govern the country.

As expected, no party won enough seats for a majority in the lower house of parliament. The erratic voting patterns shifted significant numbers of seats to parties with extremist views and robbed moderate parties of influence -- a result that stunned government officials and political analysts.

"It's a new signal from the voters," said Jan Marijnissen, leader of the Socialist Party, which won the third-highest number of seats in one of the biggest upsets of the day. The party promotes an anti-globalization, anti-European platform and advocates greater public spending on the poor and elderly.

So they're all nationalist and some are socialist.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 23, 2006 10:49 AM