Fourth Steegmans cabinet

The Fourth Steegmans cabinet, also referred to as Steegmans IV, was the third of five consecutive cabinets under the leadership of Labourers Party (AP) prime minister Albert Steegmans.

The cabinet consisted of all parties represented in the States General with exception to the Radical/Pacifist (RP), Farmers Party and the Centre Party (MP). The RP had since its founding refused to form part of a government, partly due to its anarchist ideology. The Farmers Party and Centre Party had agreed to an electoral alliance where any government with one would include the other. Because of this, they were excluded from any government led by the AP or UVD. This boycott came to be after the Centre Party had withdrawn its support for the previous Steegmans government. While this move was motivated partially by ideological differences within the cabinet, MP party leader Jan van Blaak admitted in 1996 that the main impetus was the party's popularity. While the party was projected to win around 110 seats in pre-cabinet fall polling, the MP's election result was 54 seats - the loss mainly coming from the perceived betrayal.

The AP-UVD combination did not have enough seats to form a majority government. While forming a minority government was discussed, the threat of a strong Centre Party gaining influence in the legislature was unacceptable for both coalition partners. In the years prior both Christian democratic parties - Catholic Union (KU) and the Reformed State Party (GSP) - had agreed that any government containing one would have to also include the other. While the UVD favoured cooperation with the Liberal People's Party (LVP) an AP-UVD-LVP government would only have 173 seats in parliament; not enough to control a majority of 181. Left with no other choice negotiations were started with the GSP and KU. In total it took the parties 161 days to form a government.