Votin time

For the second time since Pim Fortuyn went down in a Bon Jovi-ish blaze of glory, Holland goes to the polls on Wednesday. Spin, half-truths, meaningless sound-bites...the airwaves are jammed with political jive; but fortunately I'm here to cut to the chase and give you foreigners the real lowdown on the dogs in the race. The favorite is Balkenende, Christian Democrats (CDA), a personable puppet whose strings are pulled by Holland's traditionally CDA-voting ruling class of tycoons & aristocrats, headed by Queen Beatrix, who just loves cute little Jan Peter, with his overbite and bowl-haircut, because he sits so politely at the Big Table during meetings and always replies, "Yes, Ma'am!". Zalm, conservative VVD leader, is brilliant at arithmetic but has less charisma than the fish he's named after%Germany's Helmut "Cabbage"

Kohl did much for vegetable surnames, but opinion polls say Holland doesn't really like gray salmon. Bos, a former Shell executive, inexplicably leads the Party of the Workers (PvdA). A pretty boy who spends more money per week on hair-gel, manicures and lunch than a lowly Dutch worker earns in a month, Bos might be a VVD secret agent, sent from Corporate HQ to finally rid this land of the last traces of mainstream social democracy. [Gossips whisper that Bos is actually the illegitimate son of Fritz Bolkestein!]. Marijnisssen, Socialist Party leader, is a closet Stalinist whose post-election plan is to exile Wassensaar's wealthy elite to a low-income housing estate in Dutch Siberia (Almere), filling their empty Wassenaarse villas with the families of Moroccan paprika pickers. Halsema, Green Party leader, is certainly attractive; unfortunately, she has Green (lack of) policies. If elected, Halsema could legalize homo-bestial marriages, arguing that "What's good for hetero's, is good for animals" and paving the way for humanity's first State-sanctioned marriage of a man and his dog. The LPF (Deceased Pim's Party) has degenerated into an axis of idiocy, led by party boss, Herben, a toupee-wearing gnome, and supported by a few nouveau riche jackals, the Gay Men's Anti-Muslim Society, Feyenoord football hooligans, and Holland's supreme plastic asshole, Adam Curry. Who will win the election? Who cares. Brussels calls the shots now. For a national leader, we TV-addicted modern consumers simply want a good-looking product. Hence, handsome Bos, PvdA, wins the 2003 Dutch Electoral Beauty Contest in a landslide. You heard it here first.