AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, May 16 (UPI) -- The look on Wim Kok's face spoke volumes as the Dutch prime minister, soon to move on in political life, waited to address his Labor Party faithful at a post-election rally in central Amsterdam.
With the news of Labor's drubbing trickling in, the EU's longest serving leader stared forlornly into the distance and struggled to comprehend why voters had turned their backs on his party in such droves.
As well he might.
For the past two decades, the Dutch economy has been one of the strongest performing in the Western world. Growth has been above the European average, unemployment has plummeted from 11 percent in 1983 to just over 2 percent today and unlike most EU countries the Netherlands has a healthy budget surplus.
Moderate leftists like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton raved about the "Dutch miracle" and invited Kok along to their Third Way seminars to explain how the "Polder model" could be exported to other countries.
The question Kok -- and failed French socialist candidate Lionel Jospin -- must be mulling over is: How can voters be so disgruntled when the economy is in such good shape?
Shortly before the full enormity of Labor's rout was revealed Wednesday night, Labor campaign chief Jacques Monasch told United Press International that "whereas in the old days people said 'It's the economy, stupid,' now they say, 'It's not the economy, stupid'".
With the economy ticking over and welfare checks still arriving in the post, voters have found new things -- such as crime and immigration - to worry about.
There is also a feeling that as more and more decisions are taken in Brussels and the differences blur between parties, politics in its traditional sense has ceased to matter.
Talking to voters outside an Amsterdam polling station, one gets the distinct feeling that what we are witnessing is not so much the "end of history" -- as Francis Fukuyama predicted more than a decade ago -- but the 'end of politics.'
"Politics hasn't been important for the last eight years because everything's going so well," said 24-year-old student Bas van Druyten after switching votes to the radical Green Left party. "People are spoiled," he added.
Others put the desire for change down to sheer boredom with the current political class, most of who have been in power since the late 1980s.
Slain populist leader Pim Fortuyn succeeded in gaining so much support -- his party became Holland's second largest Wednesday -- precisely because it offered a new approach to politics.
It addressed "taboo" issues such as crime and immigration in a direct and uncompromising way. It broke the cozy consensus-driven world of Dutch politics by promising an end to the "jobs for the boys" culture. But most crucially, it spoke directly to ordinary people in language they could understand.
Radical Liberal politician Lousewies van der Laan told United Press International that most mainstream parties are guilty of acting like the Catholic Church before the Reformation: "They preach in Latin with their backs to the congregation and when they turn around they are surprised to find the church is empty," described the European Parliament member.
Van der Laan said the electorate had taught governing parties an important lesson: "When you're doing well in government, you can't take anything for granted," he said, adding: "Complacency has a very high price."
On Wednesday, the Labor Party paid dearly for its failure to capture the public mood when it lost half its 45 seats and crashed to its worst defeat in the party's history.
Whether it deserved such treatment after doing so much to revitalize the Dutch economy and society is open for debate.
But this was an election of high emotions in which the traditional Dutch values of tolerance, measured sense and respect for differences went out of the window.
How else do you explain the fact that almost a fifth of the Dutch electorate voted for a party with no leader, no experience in politics and few coherent policies?
The success of the Fortuyn's party is not the only bizarre result to emerge from Wednesday's election, however, said Van der Laan.
"The Dutch voters gave a very clear signal they wanted change, but by giving the Christian Democrats and List Pim Fortuyn party the largest number of votes they sent completely different messages. The Christian Democrats are very conservative and don't like change, whereas the List Pim Fortuyn want to shake up everything," said the Euro-MP.
If the two parties do enter into coalition together, stand back and wait for the sparks to fly -- and don't expect to see the words "dull" and "Dutch politics" in the same sentence again.
