As with this week's Lower House elections, there was a lot to choose from in the mid-1980s. On 21 May 1986, the Lower House elections took place, with 27 parties participating. Not all of them gained enough votes for a seat, with the Civil Servants & Trend Followers Party, God with Us and the Party for Happiness for All missing out. Many of these groups quickly faded into oblivion. That was not the case for Arnhem-based poster collective Loesje, which also ran for a place in parliament in 1986.
In the autumn of 1983, poster collective Loesje was founded by Arnhem activists, and they announced Loesje's establishment on 24 November. The collective stood with half a foot in the squatting movement, but contrary to the then radicalising part of the squatting movement, Loesje's activists wanted to take a positive approach. Using writing techniques based on agitation propaganda (agitprop) such as inversion, association and exaggeration and ideologically inspired by Provo and the Gnome Movement, they tried to question the existing order, plant anti-capitalist seeds and make people think.
After more than two years of writing and pasting posters, the Loesje activists decided to participate in the parliamentary elections of May 1986 to put Loesje on the map nationwide. Ruud Lubbers may have wanted to 'finish his job' from a business point of view, but Loesje opened its election programme with the question, 'Heb jij je buikvlinders al gedresseerd? Ik niet.' ('Have you already trained your butterflies yet? I haven't').
Loesje thought it was 'time for a breath of fresh air in the Netherlands'. The party programme read: 'Stand in the streets with a video and watch some tapes from the elections four years ago. People won't even realise that these are the old elections. The headlines are the same, the topics, the sighing and supporting. The talking points and the solutions. Well, 'solutions'. Is it time for a breath of fresh air in the Netherlands? Yes, it is. Old ideas are creeping back up from every nook and cranny, with the family as the cornerstone of society, that if you are 'good', you will be rewarded and we should leave everything to the business world and things will 'come right'. Hello, are we going to do something about it? Yes!'
What was Loesje going to do about it? 'Carefree' striving for the ideal. With elephants (real ones) in a China shop (a figurative one - a papier-mâché cup and saucer) at the Binnenhof. On 6 May 1986, Loesje leader Niels van de Griend walked with two elephants onto the square between the two Chambers. The elephants' riders performed an absurdist play with large cardboard signs.
Fant: Is this now striving for the ideal?
Oile: I think it's just carefree again.
Fant: Carefree?
Oile: Carefree.
Fant: What is the ideal?
Oile: If I knew, I would strive for it.
Fant: Isn't it, if you just put your mind to it, then you would know?
Oile: The chicken or the egg?
Fant: In a good soup, there are both.
(Quoted in: Van der Bij, p. 102)
Loesje's election spot was also rather absurdist and associative, with no real political programme.
And the same was true of their election song:
Banana, banana, forward against it,
Because people are jostling when you run singing
Hi, spring is just around the corner, so start right away,
Strawberry, strawberry, that's Loesje, that's Loesje,
Loesje that's YOU.
(Quoted in: Van der Bij, p. 101)
Loesje did not complain about media attention, but with 12,882 votes, they did not reach the electoral threshold.
As a publicity stunt, though, the election participation had worked. Loesje enjoyed national fame and even launched an international career whilst continuing to comment on Dutch politics. In 1987, for instance, Loesje's little brother wrote about the budget cuts: 'The government has anorexia' (January 1987). In 1989, although they wrote the election programme Don't Vote for Me, they did not participate in the elections. Not long after the formation of Lubbers-III, they wrote: 'Are Lub and Kok walking down the street. Says Lubbers: "And Wim, are we making a profit yet?"' (January 1990). In 1998, many Loesje activists were on the electoral list for the IdeALists/You. And in autumn 2002 ('It was a day like this when Marco Polo left for China. What are your plans for the new cabinet?'), Loesje interfered in the elections again.
While the 'new pragmatism' prevailed politically, the ideals of the 1960s and 1970s had not disappeared; they were just taking on new forms. On 24 November 2023, Loesje will celebrate its 40th anniversary.
Sources and further reading
- Het verkiezingsprogramma van Loesje
- Over 40 jaar Loesje
- Het verkiezingsspotje van Loesje uit 1986
- Fleur van der Bij, Loesje. De biografie. Querido Fosfor, Amsterdam, 2023
- Loesje, Het lijkt simpel en dat is het ook. 40 jaar Loesje, A.W. Bruna, 2023
