Friday, April 11, 2008
Burgomasters & Burgermasters
The polls are open!
I'm still a bit dazed in seeing as Italians think to Silvio B. as a normal and legitimate candidate. But I'm starting to be sadly used to it (to Italian thinking, not to Silvio being) so this time I promise I'll try to stay fairly calm.
(But we all know on Monday afternoon I'll be tearing my clothes off in Vaalserberg.)
In the meantime I'll be killing time following the elections of the mayor in the city of Rotterdam.
In The Netherparts the mayor (burgemeester) is not elected by the people, but he's appointed by the government (actually de jure by the Queen) after being suggested by the city Council, which is in fact elected by the folk.
Now the burgemeester of Rotterdam, Ivo Opstelten, has been chosen as chairman of his party, the Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD, People's Party for Freedom and Democracy... is this a sign?), so he has to leave the office.
The problem is that now the city Council is not able to nominate a new candidate because of a weak majority of the left wing Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA, Labour Party... is this another sign?) which used to rule the city for ages before the rise of populism.
The way out would be having a consulting referendum between the inhabitants in order to help the Coucil to decide. Unfortunately this was already tried in the past in other cities (Leiden, Utrecht, Eindhoven, ...) without any success: the referenda failed to attract enough voters to be binding and were widely regarded as a failure.
So what did the Dutch, smart of them!, decide?
Rotterdam city council chose to poll its residents about whether or not they want to hold a referendum on the city’s next mayor!!!
This is democracy!
(I may sound ironic but I'm not.. Heerlijk!)
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