Next week, Mark Rutte will be Prime Minister of the Netherlands for exactly ten years. During that period he conducted a number of debates in the House of Representatives. Sometimes spicy, sharp and vicious. But even if a positive outcome seems hopeless from the start, he still manages to placate, confuse or surprise his opponents after all these years. How does he do this?
Next week, Mark Rutte will be Prime Minister of the Netherlands for exactly ten years. During that period he conducted a number of debates in the House of Representatives. Sometimes spicy, sharp and vicious. But even if a positive outcome seems hopeless from the start, he still manages to placate, confuse or surprise his opponents after all these years. How does he do this?
Lost receipts or memos, no “active memories” of conversations and broken promises, there are plenty of times when MPs become very irritated and have had it all with the cheerful Rutte who seems to be talking about everything.
He claims to have suffered a number of scratches over the years, but can withstand almost any debate storm. Even during the corona crisis, he is in control.
“He is of the outside category in the House of Representatives”, debate expert Roderik van Zwitserland, director of the Netherlands Debate Institute, told NU.nl.
“He mainly comes across as an expert”, says Jaap de Jong, professor of Journalism and New Media at Leiden University. “He is very much in control. Relaxed and tireless with an above average amount of energy.”
Van Greeks and De Jong have been analyzing the General Political Reflections since 2007 and as jury members each time choose a winner of the most important debate of the year. Rutte has already won this prize three times.
‘You expect more vision from the boss of the Netherlands’
According to both experts, Rutte has mastered the three most important qualities of a good debater down to the last detail: expertise, benevolence and credibility.
Van Greeks: “Rutte has been in politics since 2002. He usually knows better than the person facing him what the details and broad outlines of a file are.”
Credibility does not necessarily mean the content of what Rutte says. He has now made some false promises (1,000 euros for workers, not a cent more to the Greeks, no fiddling with the mortgage interest deduction) that are regularly paid to him.
“By credibility I mean that the message and the messenger are close to each other,” explains Van Zwitserland. “Rutte excels in this. He will rarely perform a play. Whether Rutte is standing in front of a room with angry Zeelanders or sitting next to US President Donald Trump, he always looks relaxed.”
Of course, the prime minister is not doing everything right. “Sometimes he shoots out of his role as the good-natured leader of the country,” says De Jong. “When he says ‘fuck off’ to Turkish Dutch, rioters would prefer to beat up themselves or say that football fans in stadiums should shut up.”
Rutte is also not the person with big, philosophical ideas. “You expect a little more vision from the boss of the Netherlands”, says De Jong.
Show interest in the questioner and thus take control
Van Greeks and De Jong now recognize the debating techniques most commonly used by the Prime Minister. For example, he rarely goes against the proposition of a questioner, says Van Greeks. “He often thinks along.” An interesting point that you raise. ” Or, “You are absolutely right, you will find me on your way here.” In all variants these forms come up in debates. ”
According to Van Greeks, this technique shows the viewer that you are listening to your opponent. You also create sympathy with the questioner and position yourself as a leader, because you involve everyone. “You therefore take control and you are in control. That is perhaps the most important thing.”
Sow confusion by cutting up questions
De Jong sees that Rutte likes to break down difficult questions. “‘Just peel it off,’ he says. Then he answers the questions he has created in an order of his choice.”
This is how Rutte creates his own building, the professor continues. “He can hide the tricky part and answer the other with bravado.”
Van Greeks subscribes to this: “By cutting up questions, he sends you straight into the woods. Rutte does that very cleverly and ingeniously. He first takes his opponents for a beautiful walk. Gradually the questioner asks himself: why am I here? actually? But then it is already too late and you are lost. You see the MPs walk away from the microphone. ”
Apologize (on time)
What sets Rutte apart from other politicians, according to Van Greeks and De Jong, is that he regularly goes through the dust. “Admitting a mistake can be a sign of weakness. But if you time well, just before people can nail you to the wall, then it is actually powerful,” says Van Greeks.
In the summer of 2016, well before the campaign for the House of Representatives elections started, Rutte apologized in an interview with De Telegraaf for his broken promises. “Let me be completely clear about that: I say sorry for that,” the prime minister told the newspaper.
Saying sorry at the right time is an art, according to Van Greeks. “Look at how Halbe Zijlstra had to defend himself as Minister of Foreign Affairs about a made-up meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Or at Minister of Justice Ferd Grapperhaus when it became known that the corona rules were not being observed at his own wedding. They kept running endlessly. Apologies came, but too late. ”
You also have to dose your apologies, Van Greeks continues. “Are you really going through the dust or are you just saying that it could have been done differently?”
Only once of Greeks sees Rutte throwing in the ultimate means: himself. “That only happens when there are no more arguments, such as with the abolition of the dividend tax. He felt ‘to the very core’ that this was necessary. Nobody wanted it, Rutte has more or less defended this measure on his own for a year and a half. It’s a wonder of God that it took so long. ”
How can Rutte be tackled in debates?
According to Van Greeks it is “incredibly difficult” to fight Rutte in debates. “You have to try to expose his tricks.”
Another way is to undermine its credibility. “But even after ten years you can see that it is difficult to get a grip on Rutte. I don’t see any metal fatigue yet.”
Rutte himself says he has not yet made a decision whether he wants to become party leader of the VVD again in the run-up to the elections in March next year.
De Jong advises his opponents not to take a long run-up in questions. “This way you give Rutte the opportunity to go into various points, so that he can also avoid parts. Don’t give him the push so that he can say: ‘Just peel it off.'”