International

Yesterday the lead candidates on the European Parliament election lists were chosen by a number of our rival parties: the centrist D66, the centre-right CDA, and the seniors’ party 50Plus respectively nominated Sophie In’t Veld, Esther de Lange and Toine Manders. Congratulations to them. At the same time I’m astonished by how early election fever has struck, as the elections aren’t until next May 22nd, and in the Netherlands we have local elections between now and then. The SP will determine its list of candidates and the manifesto on which they will run when delegates vote at the national congress on February 22nd. Given the low turnout at these other parties’ internal elections, it seems to me that election fever, to the extent that we can use that expression, has arrived too soon. For me the campaign will only get under way on March 21st, the day after the local elections. But at that point the SP will really get going, undoubtedly with a fine list and, just as important, a strong manifesto.

Still, it can’t be seen as satisfactory by these brand new lead candidates that scarcely as many as 20% of their members took the trouble to cast their votes. It’s striking, moreover, that it evidently doesn’t matter whether the party follows an enthusiastic or a more sceptical line on the EU. Even for D66, the party which openly strives for a federal Europe, the turn-out was only 20%. That doesn’t hold out much promise for when the actual elections take place next year. So will the turnout once again set a new record low, as it did in 2009?

The SP does not want to see so many people staying at home. Parties which attract relatively well-educated voters are in general in favour of transferring more powers to Europe, and more educated people tend to vote. So these parties will do better in the European elections than will the EU-critical parties. If people would rather maintain the status quo, or better still make a clean sweep through the Eurocratic and neoliberal European Union, then they can expect nothing good from the traditional parties, whether Labour, or the two centre-right parties the VVD and CDA. The day after the elections these parties will simply continue the erosion of national democracy. Every voter who stays away from the polls is thereby supporting the establishment and, in due course, a federal Europe.

In the campaign we in the SP will primarily have to direct our efforts towards mobilising all of those voters who want to see thorough change in Brussels. We will of course produce a sound election manifesto, one on which I and other members of the party’s manifesto committee are currently working, and an excellent list of candidates. But above all we will be doing that on the street, by explaining that every vote really counts. We don’t need to begin this mobilisation today: as the disappointing turnouts in the other parties’ internal elections show, not many people are expecting a European election campaign just yet. After March 20th, however, things will start to liven up. Branches, no doubt inspired by good results in the local elections, will need to get down to it once again. But that’s what SP members are always good at: doing the right thing at the right moment and at high speed.