2005 Dutch General Election (Year of Fortuyn)

Background
Between the August of 2002 and April of 2005 cabinet Wiegel I had been in power with support of the LPF, CDA and VVD coalition. Prime minister Hans Wiegel had been in that position as a member of both the LPF and VVD. During the first years the cabinet went for a clean up policy in the public sector with the aim of getting better results for the same money. While in some ways this was a success it had not made much progress overall. There had also been tensions between the CDA and the rest of the coalition on the migration issue. CDA at times thought the LPF was pushing it to far in how strict it should be. And wanted no limit on the amount of people allowed in. Wiegel decided to not go for a quota against the will of LPF leader Pim Fortuyn which led to friction. Late 2004 and at the start of 2005 more friction came about when the cabinet started to campaign in favor of the European constitution. Something which the LPF was heavily against. Fortuyn had been aiming to start the constitutional change to make the position of mayor a elected one in the Netherlands. In 2002 all coalition partners agreed that the government would start the exploration of this idea even tough VVD and CDA where not in favor of such a change. When in November 2004 this had still not been done by the Wiegel Cabinet Fortuyn moved to draft a bill together with the D66 group in parliament. This move led to opposition from Wiegel as well as the parliamentary groups of CDA and VVD and in April 2005 Wiegel advised the parliament to vote against the bill after which with support of VVD and CDA the bill was rejected. In response Fortuyn and the LPF pulled out of the coalition causing the fall of Cabinet Wiegel I and triggering new elections for September 2005.

Campaign
Quickly after the fall of the cabinet Wiegel announced he intended to continue and the VVD confirmed him as the party leader going into the election. Wiegel positioned himself opposite of Fortuyn on the right wing and gave up his membership of that party. After its 2002 defeat the PvdA elected a new younger leader with Wouter Bos, under his time as leader between 2002 and the start of the campaign the PvdA slowly climbed back up with good opposition in the Parliament. CDA had remained with Jan Peter Balkenende who had led them to a second place in 2002. At the start of the campaign it seemed possible for all four of these parties to win the election.