Populism Rising: Dutch Pro-Farmer Party Won Big Despite Being Outspent by Ten Other Parties

The Dutch insurgent populist Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) party dominated last week’s provincial elections to such a degree that it became the largest party in the country despite being outspent in media advertising by ten other parties.

According to research conducted by Nielsen, parties in the globalist coalition government were among the largest spenders on legacy media and social media advertising prior to last week’s provincial elections, with the coalition partners Democrats 66 (D66), the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), and the Christian Democratic Appeal (Appeal) leading the way by far in terms of money spent, the Volkskrant newspaper reports.

The research found that most of the ad euros were spent in the last two weeks of the election campaign. In a desperate attempt to cling on to power, the D66 was the biggest spender, at 1.8 million euros, followed by Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s VVD party at 1.3 million euros, and the CDA at nearly 600,000 euros.

This paved the way for a massive 50 per cent increase in provincial election spending compared to the previous campaign, jumping from 3.9 million to 5.8 million.

Meanwhile, the pro-farmer Farmer-Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging/BBB), which secured a projected 17 seats in the Dutch senate after previously holding zero, hardly spent any money on advertising, with the research finding that the populist party spent just twenty-eight thousand euros on ads on Facebook and Instagram — meaning that the BBB was not even in the top ten of parties in terms of expenditures.

This backs up previous research from the University of Amsterdam and I&O Research, which found that spending more money on social media ad buys has limited impact on swinging votes in The Netherlands.

Despite their heavy spending, the D66, VVD, and CDA coalition partners all saw their representation in the senate decline as a result of the elections, with the government overall falling from 32 seats to just 20.

The Nielsen research also dispels accusations from leftist groups prior to the election, including from Party for the Animals (PvdD) senate leader Niko Koffeman, who claimed that “big agro” was attempting to conduct the “the greatest power grab” in Dutch parliamentary history by pouring farmer money into the coffers of the BBB.

Responding to Koffeman’s statements following the release of the spending figures, outspoken BBB leader Caroline van der Plas wrote on social media: “Do you want to take back your words now? Thank you.”

She went on to say that their campaign was “largely paid for from contributions and orders from members themselves on campaign material at our web store”.

The fact that the party achieved such a stunning victory with so little spending likely means that they have a large and impassioned support base among the public as they try to de-rail the Rutte government’s plans to impose draconian restrictions on the use of nitrogen fertilisers and forcibly buy out thousands of privately owned farms in order to meet the European Union’s green agenda diktats.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka