What do Dutch people feel about the political crisis?
On the 20th of February of this year (2010) the Dutch cabinet collapsed as a result of a disagreement between the Christian Democratic party (CDA) of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and the Labour party (PvdA) of Minister of Finance Wouter Bos, over the Dutch troops in Afghanistan.
Using Premo, SusaGroup asked Dutch people how they felt about the two most prominent players in the current political chaos.
Results
Understandably, the overall emotional response to collapse of the cabinet was dissatisfaction.
Most interestingly, this feeling of dissatisfaction was attributed to Prime Minister Balkenende. People felt disgusted, dissatisfied and bored towards the Prime Minister. Additionally, participants did not experience positive emotions towards Balkenende. He scored very low on satisfaction, pride, and hope.
Balkenendes opponent in this Emotion Battle, Minister of Finance Bos, fared marginally better. People did not feel particularly positive or negative towards Bos. Surprisingly, even though Bos’s party was the one resigning from the coalition, leading to the fall of the government, people did not feel very negatively about the party’s main spokesperson.
Verdict
Balkenendes fourth consecutive unsuccessful term as Prime Minister has not done him any good. The Dutch people questioned, mainly experienced negative emotions towards Balkenende.
On the other hand, people felt less negative about Wouter Bos, despite the fact that his party’s resignation ultimately led to the collapse of the cabinet.
We call out the winner: Wouter Bos!