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Catshuis = the official residency of the Prime Minister of the Netherlands – Mark Rutte – in The Hague where negotiations about “draconic budget cuts’ of the Dutch government are entering now their second month in what is called a ‘total media silence’ leaving the whole nations at odds what is being brewed there in the name of democracy. The government coalition of liberals (VVD) and christians (CDA) is a minority cabinet that needs the votes of the PVV party of Geert Wilders + a small conservative protestant party (SGP) to have the minimal half + one number of votes to pass any decision they make through parliament. During these negotiations the PVV of Wilders did lose one of its seats to a PVV member of parliament that split off and kept his seat. The democratic majority that can be wrought for any proposal is minimal by now. During the long negotiations one of the rumours that fills up the ‘media silence’ almost each day, was that the PVV of Wilders was on the brink of stepping out of the negotiations which could have lead to fall of the government. Wilders who is known for communicating his opinions on one liners on twitter, propelled back a denying message that this was the “biggest canard of the year” (De grootste canard van het jaar). The whole of the Netherlands is still waiting since the beginning of March 2012 for the outcome of these endless budget-cut negotiations and they start to wonder about the negotiators themselves, are they “lame ducks or canards?”
the limping messenger 