How to lose a Dutch election — and still win one

Summary

EU Confidential: “How to Lose a Dutch Election — and Still Win One”
POLITICO Europe | October 31, 2025
Host: Sarah Wheaton

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Overview

This episode of EU Confidential dives into the surprising and messy aftermath of the 2025 Dutch parliamentary elections. With no clear majority, centrist D66 and far-right PVV (Party for Freedom) emerged nearly tied — yet both parties are the “smallest biggest party” in decades. The discussion explores the meaning of victory and defeat in such a fragmented field, the collapse of hopes for a left resurgence under Frans Timmermans, and the implications for Dutch and broader European politics. The episode also takes a look at the fate of socialists in Brussels and the recent Irish presidential election, offering a rounded perspective on the fortunes of Europe’s political left.

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Dutch Election: A Night of Unexpected “Winners” and “Losers”

Fragmentation and the “Smallest Biggest Party”

• D66, led by Rob Jetten, and Geert Wilders’ PVV are neck-and-neck in the vote count, with only 2,000 votes between them — an unprecedentedly small gap.
  • “Whoever comes in first… will be the smallest biggest party since the Second World War.” — Sarah Wheaton, [00:33]
• Both parties have historically low seat counts for a winner; Wilders’ PVV lost a third of its seats despite competitive vote share.

Dramatic Upheaval for the Left

• Frans Timmermans and his Green-Left/Labour alliance suffered a “crushing defeat.”
  • “People on the ground… just fell silent after the first exit poll appeared on the screens.” — Eva Hartog, [04:58]
  • Timmermans immediately resigned as party leader following poor results.

The Wilders Paradox

• Wilders’ reputation as both “winner and loser”: He lost seats but has enough visibility to claim a central role as opposition leader.
  • “With Wilders, I actually put him in a loser-winner category, which doesn’t really exist because he’s both a loser and a winner.” — Eva Hartog, [11:42]
  • Wilders reframed defeat as a beginning, vowing to be “the biggest enemy” of a possible Jetten government.

Main Issues and Campaign Dynamics

• No single dominant campaign issue.
  • “If I had to pick one, actually it was a bit of a meta issue, which was good governance.” — Eva Hartog, [07:21]
• Migration, housing, health, and climate discussed but overshadowed by a call for political stability, consensus, and an end to previous right-wing government “drama.”

Notable Personality: Rob Jetten

• Youngest possible PM since WWII, openly gay and resolutely pro-EU.
  • Framed himself as the “anti-Wilders” and even borrowed Obama’s “Yes We Can” slogan (in Dutch).
  • Pledged “10 new cities” to tackle housing crisis.
  • “He’s very ambitious, very progressive and very pro-EU.” — Eva Hartog, [09:02]

Other Party Reactions

• Mark Rutte’s VVD lost only 1-2 seats, eliciting surprisingly positive cheers from supporters, who expected worse after governing with Wilders.
  • “Expectations were so low that the result… is actually a pretty good result.” — Eva Hartog, [09:55]

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Coalition Chaos: What Happens Next?

The Complicated Dutch System

• Forming a government will take months; the largest party leads talks, but must achieve a 75-seat majority.
  • Obvious centrist coalition faces hurdles as traditional parties (VVD) have ruled out alliances with the left.
  • “The Netherlands, a country where even the center is divided.” — Sarah Wheaton, [15:26]

Implications for the EU

• If Jetten prevails, expect a more visible, engaged Netherlands in Brussels.
  • “His ambition is to return to the good old days and make the Netherlands relevant again.” — Eva Hartog, [15:52]

Personal Reflection on Democracy

• Eva Hartog reflects on the unpredictability and “wonderful experience” of covering a genuinely open Dutch election after years reporting on Russian autocracy.
  • “Looking at a screen and having no idea who would come out as the winner… this was my experience of what a democracy looks like.” — Eva Hartog, [16:55]

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The Left Falters: Aftermath in Brussels and Ireland

The Frans Timmermans Disappointment

• European socialists were “opening champagne bottles” in hope, only to be deeply shocked by Timmermans’s defeat.
  • “These hopes that Timmermans… would have a big comeback… have not materialized.” — Max Guerra, [18:22]

Spotlight: Roxana Minzatu, Executive Vice President, European Commission

• Seen as less influential than predecessors.
  • “She has a very long title and it seems she has a lot of competences. But actually… a lot of initiatives she does are rather to guide member states. They’re not binding.” — Max Guerra, [21:04]
• Noted for her behind-the-scenes defense of the European Social Fund and forthcoming work on recognition of diplomas for cross-border employment.

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Ireland: A Socialist Win That Changes Little

Catherine Connolly’s Landslide

• Independent socialist Catherine Connolly won the Irish presidency with 63% amid a bizarre two-candidate contest.
  • Opposition to her on the left was absent—five left parties united behind her.
• Presidential role is mostly ceremonial.
  • “If you think about the King or Queen of England, that’s actually a pretty good comparator.” — Sean Pogatchnik, [29:52]
  • No policy power; can only refer legislation to Supreme Court in rare cases.

Right-wing Frustration, Spoiled Ballots

• Far-right and conservative voters had “no one to vote for” and organized to spoil one in eight ballots.
  • “Roughly one in eight ballots were spoiled. And that simply never happened in an Irish election before.” — Sean Pogatchnik, [27:46]

Impact on Irish Politics

• Connolly’s win signals continuity more than change — unlikely to shift Ireland’s overall political direction left.
  • “It’s very hard to form a government without Fianna Fail or Fine Gael or now both.” — Sean Pogatchnik, [30:56]
• Fallout from the failed Fianna Fail candidacy may endanger Prime Minister Micheál Martin’s leadership.

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Memorable Quotes

• “Whoever comes in first… will be the smallest biggest party since the Second World War.” — Sarah Wheaton, [00:33]
• “At the election Watch party just fell silent after the first exit poll appeared… no one had expected this.” — Eva Hartog, [04:58]
• “He [Wilders] already cast himself as… the main opposition leader, which is what he does best.” — Eva Hartog, [12:29]
• “Looking at a screen and having no idea who would come out as the winner… this was my experience of what a democracy looks like.” — Eva Hartog, [16:55]
• “Roughly one in eight ballots were spoiled. And that simply never happened in an Irish election before.” — Sean Pogatchnik, [27:46]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00] Dutch election: Fragmentation, confused victory, main parties
• [03:25] Eva Hartog explains results and the centrist/far-right battle
• [04:44] Collapse of the left and Timmermans’ resignation
• [06:36] Campaign themes: good governance and consensus
• [08:05] Rob Jetten’s profile and vision
• [09:22] VVD’s surprising relief at modest losses
• [11:42] “Winner-loser” status of Wilders described
• [13:57] Coalition math and post-election calculations
• [15:42] Potential EU impact if Jetten becomes PM
• [16:55] Eva Hartog’s reflection on democratic elections vs authoritarian ones
• [18:22] Socialist reaction to Timmermans’ defeat, disappointment in Brussels
• [19:56] Roxana Minzatu’s profile and limited influence
• [24:52] Ireland: Catherine Connolly’s landslide explained
• [27:46] Far-right frustration, spoiled ballots in Ireland
• [30:56] Irish presidency’s limits, impact on parties

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Conclusion

The Dutch election, far from yielding a clear winner, produced a muddled outcome emblematic of the Netherlands’ increasing political fragmentation. While the centrist D66 celebrates an unprecedented victory, the far-right PVV and left-wing Timmermans both emerge battered. The episode highlights the challenges of coalition-building and the declining influence of European socialists, with only isolated bright spots like Ireland’s (mostly symbolic) left-wing presidential victory. For the Netherlands, coalition talks promise to be long and fraught, their outcome potentially reshaping the country’s stance in Europe. For listeners, the key lesson is uncertainty: in both democracy’s unpredictability and the shifting fortunes of European political currents.

Transcript

[A]

What does it mean to win an election in the Netherlands? As of this recording, we're still trying to figure out the answer to that in the literal sense. But even when all the votes are tallied, the picture of victory will still be pretty muddy. Whoever comes in first after Wednesday's election, as my colleague Eva Hartog put it in an editorial meeting, will be the smallest biggest party since the Second World War. And these two little big parties couldn't be more different. One of them is the far right movement of Geert Wilders, the guy who shocked the Netherlands and all of Europe in 2023 when his broadsides against migration and European integration swept him into victory and his party into government. The other is D66, a centrist party that's been around for a while, but is now suddenly having its moment. Rob Yutte, and that's spelled J E T T E N ran as the anti Wilders, promising good governance and no drama. Obama style politics. Here's the thing. Wilders might come in first place, but his party lost a third of its seats. And Yeti? Yeah, he's got a good shot at being prime minister if he can get a bunch of other parties that hate each other to work together. And he'd be a centrist running a sharply polarized country. I mean, it's worth noting that several of the seats that Wilders lost went to a Russia friendly party even further to the right, which more than doubled its representation in the Dutch Parliament. I'm Sarah Wheaton, host of EU Confidential. While we won't really know who won the Dutch election for months, it's pretty darn clear who lost. Franz Timmermans. Yep, the former EU commissioner and architect of the Green Deal was leading an alliance of Socialists and Greens, and their performance was shockingly dismal. It's looking more and more like his time at the Commission in the early 2000s marked a high point for the political left, as we'll learn when we revisit our Berlaymont who's who series this week. The next generation of socialists in the European Commission, even some with fancy titles, have nowhere near his influence or stature. Sorry, Executive Vice President Roxana Minsatu, but this is how we're previewing this installment of our mini biography series. We'll also check in on Ireland, which elected a new president last week. The winner of that race is in fact a socialist, but the political picture is more complicated than her landslide victory appears. But now back to the Netherlands to walk us through all the surprises from Wednesday's vote and help us anticipate what's next. I'm joined by Eva Hartog, who I mentioned earlier. We usually have her on to talk about Russia, but she's also a Dutch native and covers their politics for Politico. Ava, we're speaking to you Thursday morning. I'm not sure how you're even awake, but you are. Maybe adrenaline, because Dutch voters stunned us again. Can you give us a quick breakdown of the results?

[B]

The big winner of the nights is D66. Ropieta. The party has never had a result this good in Dutch history. So he's the big, big winner. Right behind him is Geert Wilder's bfe, the Party for Freedom. And so those two are neck and neck. We're talking about a difference of some 2,000 votes, which is unprecedented. It's incredibly tight. And also, no matter who becomes the biggest party, whether it's D66 or the BFF, the party for Freedom, they would have the smallest number of votes for the biggest party ever. You know, the biggest party will be celebrating, but they have the smallest, the lowest results in Dutch history.

[A]

And these two parties, I mean, just for people who aren't familiar with them, they really couldn't be more opposite totally.

[B]

And that's the interesting thing, because Ropieta, a centrist, he won on a platform of being the anti Wilders. He styled himself as the anti Wilders. He kept saying, you know, I have a positive message. Dutch people want to turn a page. They want to leave this kind of infighting and negativity of the last far right government behind. And he's very much the anti wilder. So we have Wilders and the anti Wilders vying for the top spot.

[A]

And how did some of the other parties do? I mean, there was a lot of thought that maybe the Green Left Labour alliance, led by former European Commissioner Franz Timmermans. I mean, we were talking about him, you know, really having a chance to be Dutch Prime Minister this time. How's that going?

[B]

His name has been floated repeatedly as potentially the next Dutch PM because four parties were in the race to become the biggest party, and that included the Labor Left Alliance. What we saw yesterday was just a crushing defeat. I mean, I think that was the big shock of the night. People on the ground. So at the election Watch party just fell silent after the first exit poll appeared on the screens because no one had expected this. I mean, the Labor Left alliance is the main opposition party. They've had, you could say, an easy job over the past two years with all of that Political scandal and political paralysis, and yet they suffered a huge loss. And what happen is that instead of becoming pm, Dimmermans actually ended up resigning.

[A]

He resigned as a leader of the party.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And you know, we've been saying that Geert Wilder's far right party is locked in a race for first place, but it wasn't a successful night for him. Exactly.

[B]

No, absolutely not. So the Bay Vaid actually suffered the biggest loss if you compare it to the last election in 2023, possibly 11 or 12 seats at the time of this conversation. But still, I would like to caveat that his voters tend to not want to show up. They're fickle because they have very low trust in the Dutch political system. And so the fact that they did show up in the numbers that we're seeing, and also that they continue to back him after Wilders was the person who caused the collapse of the previous government is very telling. And it also says a lot about how polarized and fractured the Dutch political landscape is at the moment.

[A]

Well, yeah, I mean, let's indeed dig into that. Can you walk us through the main issues that shaped the campaign? And just to put it in context, as you said, this was a snap election triggered by Hirt Wilders when he pulled out of the coalition over migration policy. So for example, was migration a big factor?

[B]

Again, it's interesting because the campaign was quite scattered. It didn't really get going until a couple of weeks ago, especially the past week, the last three days. And so it failed to really pick up steam. And there wasn't one central topic. Migration, as you said, was an issue. But the various candidates also spoke about the housing crisis, the health sectors, a bit on climate. But there wasn't this one issue that they all rallied around. And if I had to pick one, actually it was a bit of a meta issue, which was good governance. And this is something that the 66 leader, Ropieta, did a good job at. He just pulled that towards him and said what we need is a stable government and maybe a return to the kind of consensus politics that the Dutch are famous for and that Wilders is not a fan of. And so both Jette and Henry Bontembal of the cda, the center right Christian party, made that their main message. So it wasn't as much about different specific topics as the way in which politics is done in the Netherlands.

[A]

And can you tell us some more about Rob Jeta? I mean, he's the anti Wilders, but what is he Right.

[B]

That's not enough right to be in Anti Wilders. If he becomes the next PM, he would be the youngest PM since the Second World War. So in Dutch history, he's 38 years old, he's openly gay, he's very pro EU, which also sets him apart from builders, who's a EU skeptic. And what he did in this campaign, which I thought was very interesting, was he framed himself as a mix between Obama with his yes we can mentality. They actually stole, I would say, the Obama slogan. So they had a Dutch equivalent of yes we can as their main slogan. And Marc Ritters, so the former VVD leader today, NATO Secretary General's positive vibe. He was known for saying that the Netherlands is a cool country. And Rudbette really adopted that this time around. One of the things that he proposed was building 10 new cities in the Netherlands to solve the housing crisis. So he's very ambitious, very progressive and very pro eu.

[A]

Okay. And you mentioned Mark Rutte, and so I just want to go on a little tangent. So D66 and Mark Rutte's party are both kind of centrist liberal parties, but Rutte's party didn't do so well.

[B]

Right. I was at the election party yesterday at the Fevre Day, and it was interesting because as the results appeared on the screen of the first exit poll, people started cheering. There were three waves of cheers. The first one was when they ended announced the loss of the BFF of Geared Wilders. The second was when they saw that the Green Left alliance had also lost a huge amount of seats. And the third time they cheered was when they saw their own result, which is actually a loss of one or two seats. It looks like it's going to be two. So they actually lost two seats. And yet people cheered. And when I spoke to some of the attendants, what they said was that they'd expected to be punished for participating in the last far right government much more than they did. So expectations were so low that the result that they have now is actually a pretty good result.

[A]

Yeah, really. The story of this election night is defied expectations and none defied our expectations More than Timmerman's poor performance. How did he react?

[B]

Right. I would say that Timmerman is the big loser of the night. He gave a very calm, I would say, controlled speech in which he said that it was time for change. He basically took responsibility. Responsibility. He said he hadn't managed to do what D66 Ropieta did do, which is tap into a desire for change, you know. And so during that speech is also when he stepped Down. Yeah. I think there will be a lot of soul searching in the coming weeks. I have to say that de Marmont has been around for a long time, and in this case, it appears that that's not what many voters wanted. He failed to present a fresh kind of image, that fresh story that we were talking about that Ropieta had the positivity, the turning a page. When Dutch voters look at Timmermans, the thing that comes to mind is not necessarily renewal, it's not turning a page. They see Timmermans as a very experienced diplomat with a lot of experience abroad, but not necessarily someone who understands the Netherlands or Dutch voters problems. Right?

[C]

Indeed.

[A]

And I think we're predicting already in Brussels that this is the real end of his political career. And likewise, how did Wilders react to his big loss of seats?

[B]

When it comes to Wilders, that was interesting because we actually at Politico, we did a roundup of the biggest losers and winners of the night. And with Wilders, I actually put him in a loser winner category, which doesn't really exist because he's both a loser and a winner. You could say he last night said he was disappointed, basically. He said he'd expected more. And that is because in the past weeks he's been campaigning, he's been urging his supporters to come out and vote and make him the big party of the Netherlands. That wasn't what it was looking like yesterday. And as we said before, he was the biggest loser of the night in terms of seats. Right. And so that says something too. He already cast himself as kind of the main opposition leader, which is what he does best. Right. He actually literally said, buckle up, this is just the beginning. He already framed the result as Ro Pieta might become the next prime minister. I'm going to be his nemesis. I'm going to be his biggest enemy. This morning things are looking a little bit different because what I saw, the last thing he tweeted was that if the pffa, if the Party for Freedom does become the biggest party Wilders is demanding, he should have the initiative. He should be given the first chance at forming a Dutch coalition.

[A]

So we could, yeah, maybe even just see a repeat of the kind of weird coalition government that we saw last time.

[B]

It's definitely going to be weird. That's the right word, but. But it's a little bit of wishful thinking on Wilder's part because he's been frozen out. I mean, every major Dutch political party has said they no longer want to work with Wilders because of the way he behaved last time around. No one is keen to be in a coalition with him. And so the chances that Wilders will actually get to form a coalition or succeed in forming a coalition are teeny, are very, very small. But the question is, what will he do with that? How will he use being frozen out of coalition talks to his own advantage, which he certainly will. I mean, that will become part of his next messaging towards his voters that we're being ignored, we're not being heard. The Dutch political establishment is sidelining us. And so that's going to be the next chapter. Yeah.

[A]

And can you walk us through a bit, just the practicalities of the coalition negotiations.

[B]

Gosh, how much time do you have?

[A]

Let's assume that it gets to the point that Jette is in charge of leading these negotiations. What will happen? What does he need to do?

[B]

Right, so it's a bit of a convoluted process and it typically takes months, it takes a long time. The leader of the biggest party typically gets the initiative. So a negotiator is appointed to scope out the various overlaps between different parties. And so the idea is that to form coalition you would want to get, get 75 or more seats. So you need to cobble together those seats based on the election results with yet the big question, and that's one of the central questions today and in the coming weeks, is going to be is he going to want to form a left wing coalition or a right wing coalition? The easiest thing to do, the most obvious coalition would be to have a centrist coalition, which is what Dutch voters appear to have voted for. Right. They've, they've voted massively for centrist parties. The big, big problem with that is that the VVD has over the past weeks and months excluded wanting to work with the left. I mean, they've explicitly said that they don't want to be in a coalition with the left.

[A]

This is the centrist former Prime Minister Margarita's party.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. And if they stick to that point, then it'll become pretty difficult to form a coalition.

[A]

Okay, the Netherlands, a country where even the center is divided. But imagining that these negotiations do ultimately result in Jette becoming Prime Minister, how do you see his rise changing the Netherlands role inside the European Union?

[B]

Right, so Jette is very pro eu. He's even told us Politico, that he wants to put the Netherlands on the map again. Because what we've been hearing from European diplomats is that the Netherlands has shrunk from that role that it had under Mark Ritter as a big player in Brussels and on the European scene. So I think under Jette, his ambition is to return to the good old days and make the Netherlands relevant again. And the fact that he would be a popularly elected Prime Minister rather than Dix Hoff, who was the previous prime minister, a technocrat already, would make a difference because he has a popular mandate. Right. And for the rest, yes, he's very progressive, very pro eu, so it would be good news for Brussels, that's for sure.

[A]

Last question. Regular listeners to this podcast know that we usually have you on to talk about Russia. And so just as an expert in these two very different political scenes, I mean, on the one hand we have an autocracy, and on the other hand you've just covered, you know, this sort of rip roaring race with lots of different parties and lots of different shades and truly, anything can happen. Can you just give us a personal, personal reflection on what that's like as a political reporter?

[B]

Oh, Sarah, I love that question so much. Yes. I mean, I lived in Russia for a decade and so I saw many an election pass by. And last night was indeed my first experience as a journalist of the democratic election of looking at a screen and having no idea who would come out as the winner. So, yeah, that's been a new experience for me. And the fact that, that you have to stay up all night and that you wake up in the morning and the picture looks different than it did last night is a wonderful experience. And it actually, this was my experience of what a democracy looks like. So it's been a good night in that regard and I was happy to lose sleep over this.

[A]

All right, well, thank you for waking up and giving us these thoughtful observations. First thing, Eva, really appreciate it.

[B]

Thank you too.

[A]

Okay, we need to take a break, but when we come back, we'll zero in on. Sorry, this is kind of harsh. The losers. Europe's socialists. We're back. So it's hard to understate the level of shock about Franz Timmerman's loss, especially among his own political allies. My colleague Max Guerra saw firsthand the excitement among other European socialists about the potential second coming of Timmermans. Max, they really thought he was going to win.

[D]

Yeah. Indeed. There was the Congress of the European Socialist Party a few weeks before the election in Amsterdam to huddle around Timmermans and, you know, help him and encourage him for the weeks ahead because they really, really hoped he would score the Dutch premiership. Right. They were really expecting the Labour GRE to come on top of the results. In fact, the atmosphere There was more of opening champagne bottles. Right? But in the end, indeed, it turns out that these hopes that Timmerman's a Social Democrat would have a big comeback after the Social Democrats have lost footholds in many governments across Europe. That has not materialized. Of course. The big leader of the Social Democrats currently is Pedro Sanchez, who also during his speech was telling Timmerman that he couldn't wait to work with him in the European Council among the rest of your leaders. And one of the Socialists, Amy Pease also, for example, I remember was telling me over lunch that Sanchez and Timmermans, as these big statesmen, these big heavyweights, would of course be able to punch above their weight during these European Council meetings. But again, this, in the end, has not happened.

[A]

So, Max, let's turn now to one of the top Social Democrats in Brussels today. Truly not of the same stature of Timmerman's, but we haven't done our Berlaymont who's who series in a long time. And as we're coming to the one year anniversary of this commission, we wanted to circle back to it. So let's talk about Commission Executive Vice President Roxana Minzatu. Max, who is she? Where does she come from? What's her background?

[D]

Roxana Minzatu is 45 year old. She's from Romania. She's a Social Democrat and she's obsessed with EU funds. Let me explain you why. In university she already focused a lot on EU cohesion funds and cohesion policy. She wrote her thesis about cohesion policy. I guess she loved it so much to study it that then she went on to also work in the field of EU funds. She also became Minister of European Funds, on and off.

[A]

So, Max, what you're saying is she's the Cohesion commissioner?

[D]

Well, she's not.

[A]

What, what's her job then?

[D]

Her official title? Of course, it's not cohesion, nerd. She is the Executive Vice President for Social rights and skills, quality jobs and preparedness. That means she coordinates the EU's work on, of course, employ and social rights. For example, next year she will lead the first European Strategy Against Poverty announced by Von der Leyen at the Sauteo.

[A]

So she's doing some stuff that's clearly very important to socialists, but not maybe her passion. And in fact, she wasn't even Romania's first choice to represent them as commissioner. Right?

[D]

She was a second choice. The first choice was Victor Negrescu. He's a longtime member of the European Parliament. However, we all remember that Von der Leyen of course, pushed hard to have gender balance as it should be. So she asked some countries to change their pick. Sonegrescu was one of the nominees that fell, and instead the Social Democrats of Romania nominated Roxana Minzatu. She was given the portfolio on jobs and social rights that the Socialists were asking for also during the hearings. So she has a very long title and it seems she has a lot of competences. But actually, at the moment, the EU still doesn't have many competences, many prerogatives in the fields of employment or in fact, social rights. So a lot of initiatives she does are rather to guide member states. They're not binding things. For example, she presented recently this Quality Jobs Roadmap, but as the name says, it's a roadmap, it's not a law, it's not binding.

[A]

But I mean, look, she has had one win. There were a lot of concerns that the European Social Fund, which is the EU's main instrument for investing in people, helping citizens get jobs, get new skills, fight poverty. There were fears that this was going to be erased in the next budget. Right? Can you tell us about that?

[D]

Indeed, there were fears that the European Social Fund would disappear, even though it's a fund that is in the treaties. So, of course, the Social Democrats fought hard against von der Leyen's rumored plan to get rid of this fund and allocate the money into other priorities, like defence. So, of course, from the Parliament you had the MEPs pushing, but then within the Commission, Roxana Minzato was at the center of the fight to get this fun to remain. However, it was not too public, it was rather behind the scenes. Unlike, for example, Teresa Rivera, who more publicly sort of defends the Social Democrats position vis a vis von der Leyen offers this political counterweight. Roxano in Meninzatu often stays more in the shadows, and that is because Minsat was not a big political profile. Right. She had been minister on and off, but rather a junior minister. She came a bit out of nowhere. She doesn't have the same weight within the Commission as others like Teresa Ribera, to represent her political family in a way, in the end, herself, with the help of the pressure from the Parliament, the ESF remained and it's still part of the budget. So that could be a little political win that she's had in the last year. Right. However, in the future, in the coming months, she will also have an interesting package, actually, that will be binding. So not like the roadmap, that is just a guidance. It will be a package to facilitate cross border employment and that will include, for example, mutual recognition by your countries of certain diplomas that will help for your citizens to move around the union. So that's something more concrete that is coming up and let's see how she does and whether perhaps she gets more vocal on her initiatives. Because so far she's not been too present in the media, we have to say.

[A]

All right, Max, we're always glad to have you present. Thank you so much for joining us today.

[D]

Thank you.

[A]

It wasn't all bad news this week for socialists around the eu. In Ireland, Catherine Connolly, who calls herself an independent socialist, won the presidential election. She's a hardcore lefty, but as we'll hear from Sean Pogacnick who reports from Ireland for Politico, Connally managed to deliver a unifying campaign. So, Sean, what we saw last weekend was a landslide victory by Catherine Connolly. She was always slated to win, but she outperformed the polls in Ireland's presidential race. Can you quickly take us through the results?

[C]

Yeah. She got around 63% of the first preference vote. And unusually in Irish presidential races, she only had one challenger and that was from a government party, Fine Gael. So normally in a presidential race in the modern era, you might have five, six, seven people on the ballot and people would be given choices and you could vote in order of preference. But really this was a very straight choice between a government candidate and a government critical candidate. But, but in addition to that, for the first time in Irish politics, Catherine Connolly, because she was an independent politician, she's not a member of any party, she's on the left, but she was her own woman. She was able to get five different groupings backing her and nobody opposing her on the left, which is absolutely critical to give her a free run and not have to fight anyone else on the left for the vote.

[A]

As you mentioned, there were only two candidates and that's not normal. There was a bit of turmoil. I mean, I remember when person who'd be very familiar to people here in Brussels, former commissioner Mairead McGuinness. We thought she was gonna run, but then she dropped out for health reasons. Some other candidates dropped out. Can you walk us through this a.

[C]

Bit in terms of the presidency? What normally happens is that it's Fianna fall against Fine Gael. Finna Fall and Fine Gael are the two heavyweights, the perennials of Irish politics. And they're broad church parties of the center. They've been parts of every government since Irish independence from Britain more than a century ago. And since 2016, those two parties have come together in a succession of coalition governments. And why have they come together? Because they both opposed the left wing Sinn Fein party in terms of the presidency. They had to decide, do we want to run candidates against each other? Initially, they decided yes. Michal Martin, who's the prime Minister of the Taoiseach of Ireland, he's the leader of Fianna Fall, he thought he'd achieved a masterstroke by picking an outsider, and he picked a famous sporting figure, a guy named Jim Gavin, who had coached the Gaelic football team for Dublin to five consecutive championships. Unfortunately, the minute that Jim Gavin opened his mouth, we could see that this guy was no politician. He could barely answer questions. He didn't appear to have any coherent politics at all. And his campaign lasted only a couple weeks and he resigned from the race. So effectively, Fianna Fall had nobody contesting the election. And that left the Fine Gale candidate, Heather Humphries, to compete with Catherine Connolly. And Fine Gale didn't stand a chance of winning on its own.

[A]

All right. And so, yeah, so that was kind of the lead up. And then that brings us up to the week before the race.

[C]

What was the mood while the campaign was going on in this broadly positive atmosphere? The main refugee center southwest of Dublin was coming under siege from racists. And the trigger for it, as is often the case, and not just in Ireland, but an immigrant had been accused of a horrible crime. So for two nights, there was serious rioting outside this refugee center. All the while the campaign was going on.

[A]

I think it's probably safe to say that these protests showed a lot of anger on the far right. And those people seem to feel like they didn't have any choice to make at the ballot box.

[C]

If you were anti immigration in this presidential race, you had absolutely nobody to vote for. They wanted somebody from the conservative, from the right, maybe a Catholic conservative on the ballot. And there were a couple people who tried late in the day to get on the ballot, but they didn't make it. So people on the conservative right here felt they had no one to vote for, and they were encouraged on social media to spoil their ballots. And you could do that in a variety of ways, but a lot of them were just covered in graffiti and racist slogans. Roughly one in eight ballots were spoiled. And that simply never happened in an Irish election before it was organized on social media. But it was clearly a very popular thing for people on the right here to register their protests that they didn't feel they had anyone on the ballot to Vote for.

[A]

So, yeah, a lot of frustration on the far right. But who is Catherine Connolly? I mean, what do we know about her political career so far? We know she's, as you said, an independent socialist, but not part of sort of the center left really.

[C]

We haven't talked about who she's replacing and that for all the people who look at Ireland say, wow, they've just elected a left wing socialist president, that's a shock. It's anything but. It actually represents continuity because the person she's replacing is very much politically almost exactly like her. His name is Michael D. Higgins. He's also from Galway in Western Ireland. He was also a socialist. Now it so happens that he's a member of the Labour Party, which is a left of center party here. So is Catherine Connolly. And in fact her political career began because she wanted to run for the national parliament in Galway and she wanted basically to replace Michael D. Higgins as Labour's candidate in Galway. She wanted to run side by side with them and potentially knock him out. Labour wouldn't let her run, so she ended up leaving the Labour Party. That's how she became independent. So she actually has very poor relations with the Labour Party, although the Labour Party was one of the five parties of the left who did support her candidacy this time. When you're Irish president, you're supposed to be apolitical. You're not supposed to explicitly criticize the government. And perhaps most importantly, although she has lots of strong opinions on foreign policy, when you're Irish president, you're not even allowed to leave the country without government permission.

[A]

Well, so what influence or power does an Irish president have?

[C]

Well, if you think about the King or Queen of England, that's actually a pretty good comparator because the reason we have of an Irish president was that when the Ireland drafted the Constitution in 1937, it wanted to get the Brits out of Ireland. But a president is a head of state in Ireland. They oversee award ceremonies, they give speeches, they travel within Ireland. They might, in terms of diplomatic power, build bridges with people in Northern Ireland. That can be a very important part of the role. But they don't influence government policy. They don't have any role at the government table. They are separate. So about the only power that an Irish president exercises is that when a bill is about to become law, it has to be signed by the president. And in relatively rare cases, the president can convene a council of experts to decide, do we need to test the constitutionality of this? Does it need to be referred to the Supreme Court. And outside of that, the President is free to give speeches and offer veiled criticisms of the government, but the government doesn't have to listen to the president at all.

[A]

So ultimately, do you think Connally's victory tells us something about where Irish society is heading?

[C]

This has been the big question. Anytime Ireland elects a left of centre president, does this mean we're going to get a left of centre government? It could be a bug, it could be a feature of Irish politics, but it's very hard to form a government without Finnfal or Fine Gael or now both. So, no, it doesn't suggest that we're going to be moving to the left in the next Irish government. First of all, there's no need for another Irish election unless this government falls until 2029. So we're not going to be seeing an immediate change of government here. What we will probably see very soon is a change in government of Fianna Fall, and that will be noticed by everybody has dealings with Ireland because Michal Martin is leader of Fianna Fall. He's the prime minister and he might not be leader of Fianna Fall. His decision to back Jim Gavin as their candidate has done him huge damage. It was his choice. Many within his party didn't want Jim Gavin as the candidate. It was an embarrassment and a disaster. Fianna Fall, which used to dominate the presidency, it held it from 1937 to 1990. They, they wanted to have a credible candidate and instead they got an embarrassment. So we could be seeing a new prime minister of Ireland in the coming year and that will be directly because of the fallout from this election.

[A]

Sean Podgashnik, thank you so much.

[C]

Well, thank you, Sarah. Good talking to you.

[A]

Okay, that's it for this week. And that's it for the brilliant traineeship of Abigail Frison, who is off on her next next great journalism adventure that she's promised to come back and talk about next year. I'll just say we've successfully gotten her addicted to covering elections. If you haven't already, please follow EU Confidential on your favorite podcast app. Rate us and leave a comment or send us an email at podcastolitico EU thanks to Deanna Sturris, our senior audio producer. To Abigail and to Ann McAvoy, POLITICO's head of audio video, I'm Sarah Wheaton. See you next week.

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