Elections coming up

[freek]

Tomorrow local elections in the Netherlands.

Four years ago these elections were the breakthrough of Pim Fortuyn. His party Liveable Rotterdam won a third of the vote for Rotterdam municipal council, which resulted in Rotterdam Labour Party (PvdA) going in opposition for the first time since 1945.

Later that evening a debate on national television between the leaders of the large political parties and Fortuyn was won by Fortuyn in a glorious way. If Fortuyn wouldn't have been murdered two months later, he would have bedome our prime minister.

In Fortuyn's slipstream other local parties named Livable [municipality] (unconnected with Fortuyn's party) also won the election for their councils, usually causing huge upsets. In general, many of these parties fell apart in more than one fraction after huge infighting. Many Livable-aldermen had to resign because of their inexperience.

For this election, it is expected that PvdA, SP and VVD will win, especially the PvdA suffered great defeats in 2002. Local parties and D66 will lose a lot. Polls suggest that CDA will also lose, but I don't believe that.

This map shows the largest party in the council, usually three or four parties form a coalition, since only in 8 municipalities a party has 50+% of the seats. A traditional coalition is CDA/PvdA/VVD, sometimes local parties, CU or GreenLeft are part of it. In orthodox calvinist municipalities SGP may take part, the SP is only in Oss and Nijmegen municipality in the coalition:




Geen verkiezingen = no elections in 2002 (early elections because of municipal reorganisations)
Leefbaar = Liveable ...
Overige lokale partijen = Other local parties, not named Liveable ...
Overige partijen = Other parties, this is the New Communist Party of the Netherlands NCPN, they still have a stronghold in the outer northeastern corner, on the German border.

National results for local elections 2002:

Turnout 57.7%

Local parties 29.4%
CDA 20.5%
PvdA 16.0%
VVD 15.8%
GrLinks 6.1%
CU/SGP (often combined lists) 4.8%
D66 4.2%
SP 2.8%
Other 0.5%

edit: I live in Groningen municipality, a city of 150,000 inhabitants in the north of the country.

The council (39 seats) consists of PvdA 9 seats, VVD 6, GrLinks 6, SP 5, CDA 5, D66 2, CU 2, City Party (local) 2 and Student's Party 2.

The coalition consists of PvdA/VVD/GrLinks/CDA. It is expected that VVD will lose its place to SP the next period.

I will vote (by proxy, my room mate will vote on my behalf) VVD tomorrow.

[freek]

Coming up February through March 2007:

March 7, The Netherlands Provincial parliaments

This is relevant for national politics, since the members of the provincial parliaments will vote for the Senate/First Chamber next May.

In the polls it is not clear if the new government coalition of CDA, PvdA and ChristenUnie will have a majority in the Senate, which has not happened since WWII. The Senate has a veto right on all bills.