Dutch Coalition Government Resigns After Three Months

Internal feuding has been blamed for the collapse of the Dutch parliament's coalition government after just three months in office. Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende spoke to parliament on Wednesday and said that he would offer Queen Beatrix his government's resignation after describing the conflicts within the coalition as "unacceptable".

Balkenende was responsible for putting together the delicate coalition involving his own Christian Democrats, the populist LPF and the Liberal VVF party, after elections in May.

New elections in January

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister dissolved the shortest-lived Dutch administration since World War II saying the in-fighting had proven to be too much of a distraction and had hindered the government from carrying out important business. The Dutch population will be asked to vote again in new elections expected in January next year.

Although the main argument cited for the collapse centred on the expansion of the European Union, the three-party coalition had been divided by a power struggle between two ministers from Pim Fortuyn's LPF party.

The LPF, without the charismatic Fortuyn, its murdered leader, found itself plagued by arguments and back-stabbing over issues surrounding the party's future direction and organisation.

Fortuyn was shot dead in May only nine days before the election. The LPF went on to take second place to the Christian Democrats winning 26 seats in the 150-seat parliament on an anti-immigration platform.

The two LPF members accused of instigating and pursuing the feud, Eduard Bomhoff and Herman Heinsbroek, were originally granted senior cabinet seats in the coalition but were rumoured to be fighting a bitter personal feud within their own party for control. The two ministers resigned early on Wednesday but their actions came too late to save the government.

Heinsbroek left parliament telling the assembled press that he could no longer work with the coalition as a minister for the LPF. He called his party "unworkable" and said that the arguments had stemmed from the fact that the LPF was still young and full of people with so many different visions.

"Unmanageable situation"

After the resignation of the LPF ministers, Gerrit Zalm, the leader of the Liberal VVD party, the third in the coalition, immediately called for the entire government to resign and called for new elections. The VVD, along with the Christian Democrats, refused to continue working work with the LPF even though the offending ministers had quit their posts. This left Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende with little choice.

"We need new elections as soon as possible," said VVD leader Gerrit Zalm to reporters. "The situation has become unmanageable. The LPF never puts its chaos aside."