The political landscape

The Dutch polity is known as a rather fragmented multi-party system. Ever since the introduction of universal suffrage and proportional representation – both in the aftermath of the First World War – the political system has been dominated by minority parties. Even the largest parties – the Catholic and the Labour parties – never gained more than one-third of the vote. In principle it allowed many coalition figurations.

The five major parties nevertheless determined the course of Dutch politics. Three of them were religious parties:

1. – the Calvinist ARP (Anti Revolutionary party)

2. – the Dutch Reformed Protestant CHU (Christian Historical Union)

3. – the Roman Catholic KVP (Catholic People's party).

The other two represented the secular strata of the population:

1. – the Liberal VVD (People's Party for Freedom and Democracy)

2. – the Socialist PvdA (Labour party).

The major parties were closely tied to separate social subcultures, the latter being segregated along religious and class lines. Due to the impact of the religious cleavage, neither of the two secular parties was ever able to mobilise its class base fully. The religious parties jointly controlled at least 50 per cent of the popular vote until 1967. In theory the religious parties could govern alone. But the interwar period had vindicated that the three parties did not always act in harmony.