2006 Dutch election

[freek]

Donner, my hero!

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If this holds, even CDA +PvdA have no majority.  So which coalitions are possible?
CDA+PvdA+VVD or CDA+PvdA+CU

Maybe. Or CDA+PvdA+SP

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Without a chance. Maybe with CU, but no majority there.

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Maybe PvdA/CDA or CDA/VVD minority, not that big a chance.

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The VVD prefers to go into opposition now I think.

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And the results for the notorious municipality of Urk:
CDA, CU and SGP combined got 93.8% of the vote (down from 95.6% last time )!
http://www.ad.nl/verkiezingen/uitslag/?id=098

Urk = OK. Very christian, a former island full of fishermen. A stereotypical inbreeding community. .

[freek]

http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/verkiezingsuitslagen/

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Why has there been a sudden surge of support for the Socialists and exactly how left wing are they? Are they just a bunch of trots or would they actually be willing and able to serve in government?

They started as a Maoist party in the 70's, were very active in certain cities in the South during the 70's and 80's with a very strict party organisation on a populist Commnist course (they were nicknamed the Red Jehova's Witnesses), but they let go of their Communist ideas in the beginning of the 90's, and turned more Socialist, jumping in the gap left open by the demise of the Communist Party, and the more and more centrist course of the PvdA. Once in the national parliament, their leader Marijnissen (Maorijnissen ) became a charismatic leader. The last few years they more and more changed their program to a more general left wing course, trying to show their ability to govern by taking part in quite some city governments since last March (local elections).

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Their logo WAS a flying tomato, now it is just a tomato because it has become their trademark. They wanted to throw tomatoes (symbolically) to the government. Their slogan was "Vote against, Vote SP".
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[freek]

Where is a good place to find results and seat totals? I only see vote totals.

Seat totals are only available on a national level because they are allocated on a national level only.

Try the link I posted above, click on 1 of the 12 provinces.

Seat totals (national): http://www.nederlandkiest.nl/

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I updated my website with the results (97.1% counted):

http://www.nlverkiezingen.com/TK2006.html

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For one thing, the polls have done poorly this time:

Interview/NSS: 16 seats off
Peil.nl: 17 seats off
TNS NIPO: 20 seats off

There are ten parties in parliament now, and no. 11 was very close of entering parliament. Seats are allocated on a national level.

This means that if you poll 1 party 1 seat too high, you poll another one 1 seat too low. Then 16 seats off is not that bad. They underestimated Wilders/PVV quite a bit though. The support for SP and PvdA in the polls was fluctuating a lot too.

[freek]

My justification for classifying these polls as poor was because in the last national election Interview/NSS was only six seats off.

The race in 2003 was better predictable, CDA and PvdA were racing against each other to become the largest party. This harmed the SP then, they had 20 seats in the polls in December, it all evaporated beginning of January, and stabilised in the last week before the elections.

Now, in the last 2 weeks, PvdA leader Bos made so many mistakes and obvious U-turns, that the already traditional evaporation of the SP didn't happen, instead the opposite happened. Every day there were huge swings between SP and PvdA. I also heard from a lot of people in doubt between PvdA and SP that they didn't have an idea who to vote for. In my opinion it is not a polling error, the result really was unpredictable.

[freek]

Largest party per municipality

Municipalities who hadn't finished counting at 0100 CET are colored white.

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Top four circles: The winning parties. What party did their 2006 voters vote for in 2003?

Bottom four circles: The losing parties. What party did their 2003 voters vote for in 2006?

Black = didn't vote in 2003.

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I thought Randstad to be much redder (PvdA) *wonder* But why is Groningen, Drenthe and Friesland in the North this red ?

Tradition.

Whyis the North so red ?

It has always been a poor area, poorer than the rest of the country. Drenthe was almost empty 150 years ago, and was then more or less colonized by lower class "immigrants" from the rest of the country, who worked in the peat industry or on farms or started their own small farms, but the yields from the land were not impressive. Bad soil. These immigrants were not very religious, and were hardly payed. Easy victims  for a socialist party. For the South of Groningen the situation was the same.

In the rest of Groningen and in Friesland, there were large farms with rich soil. A century ago, the grain prices were very high, the Groningen farmers built houses like castles to live in, but they hardly payed their employees. They were the only employers in the region anyway, so there was no reason to. Again, good grounds to start a socialist or a communist party. In some parts of Groningen (Beerta, Finsterwolde, now merged into Reiderland) CPN (communist) scored 50% of the votes until the 80s. Until last local elections, the NCPN, a communist splinter was the largest party in Reiderland local council.

Why not in the rest of the country: In the East and the South, the area was already populated, with small farmers who were religious and therefore vote ARP or KVP or CHU. Also, the farms were small, so the income differences between employer and employees were smaller, reducing the jealousy factor. Also there was the textile industry in these areas, many people moved to the cities of the East and the South.

The Randstad is not 1 completely urban. A lot of the municipalities are completely filled by suburbs, or are rural. This means that VVD (in suburbs) and CDA (rural) will have a lot of votes. Also the traditional PvdA vote is now split up between PvdA and SP. Besides, the largest party usually has about 30% of the vote. The 3 (now 4) large parties are close to each other in a lot of municipalities, I think.

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Voting patterns by age and gender:

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What are the places where the SP topped the poll, and what are they like?

Limburg has a pretty mindblowing result...
CDA 28,6% 192478
PvdA 20,3% 136665
VVD 10,8% 72656
SP 20,6% 138355
Gr.Wilders/PvdVrijheid 11,5% 77537

SP ahead of PvdA, PvdV ahead of VVD.

2 reasons:

1. Geert Wilders (PVV-leader) comes from Venlo (Limburg).
2. The SP has a stronghold in the former coal mining towns in the South of Limburg (Brunssum, Heerlen) for at least 20 years now. These are towns where they are the largest party. Heerlen has high unemployment rates.

edit, 10 hours later. I have been thinking about it, and there might be some other reasons:
3. In Limburg, people are quite conservative. Both PVV as SP are conservative parties, one left wing, the other right wing.
4. Limburg voters tend to vote for protest parties (The prewar Dutch national socialist party NSB received a lot of votes in Limburg in the 30s), as did the Fortuyn List .
5. In addition to point 1&2, Limburg voters in general vote for local candidates. Apart from Wilders, SP MP Jan de Wit (number 4 on the SP list) comes from Heerlen, and is very popular in that area. CDA lacked a popular local candidate this time. In 2002 and 2003, Camiel Eurlings took part, but he switched to the European Parliament in 2004. In his home town Valkenburg, CDA lost a third of its voters, from 47% to 30%.

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Today it was announced that after recounts and counting absentee ballots, the SP probably will go from 26 to 25 seats, PvdA from 32 to 33. Final results will be announced Monday.

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The people have spoken. We're just not entirely sure what they've said...

How did Balkenende win most seats?

Balkenende is seen as calm and trustworthy, the economy is growing again, and CDA had a very effective campaign against the PvdA and its leader Bos. Bos was depicted as someone without a vision, and with opinions shifting on a daily basis. CDA press conferences featured a "Bos U-turn of the day". . Part of this was true though. Two weeks ago, Bos said on Tuesday that he would prefer a CDA/PvdA-coalition, on Wednesday that PvdA/VVD/GL was his favourite coalition and on Thursday that PvdA/SP/GL would be fantastic.

Also, inside the VVD there are tensions between the (social-)liberal wing (represented by VVD-leader MArk Rutte) and the conservative wing (represented by the popular minister for immigration Rita Verdonk).  Preliminary results show that something unusual has happened.

In the Netherlands, you always vote for a candidate. When voters have no preference for a certain candidate, they usually vote for the number 1 on the list, in this case Rutte.  Usually the number 1 receives more than 80% of all the votes on his list. Traditionally, this is a bit lower for the VVD, but usually still about 70%. Now, it seems that Rita Verdonk, #2 on the list, received more votes than Mark Rutte. This is unique, it has never happened before.

[freek]

No. SGP would never be in a coalition and all the other parties would leave that coalition if it joined. They are theocratic Calvinists, even more than yourself Bono, and none of those parties would want anything to do with them.

There were coalition negotiations between CDA, VVD, CU and the SGP in 2003, for the first time in history. However, CDA and VVD preferred to start negotiations with D66 a few days later because of the theocratic SGP-policies.

The SGP supported the CDA/VVD/D66-coalition in parliament though. Even more than D66.

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Wilders left the VVD with quite some noise 2 years ago. The VVD has been in government almost continually since 1977. I think they will go in opposition this time.

Yesterday Rein-Jan Hoekstra (CDA), a member of the Council of State started his work as "informateur". His job is to investigate which coalitions are the most likely to have a stable majority in parliament. It is anticipated that at first CDA, PvdA and SP will start coalition negotiations. The distance between CDA and SP is so large however that a compromise is very unlikely. This will then result in coalition talks between CDA, PvdA and CU, somewhere next January or February.

[freek]

Or use http://www.verkiezingsuitslagen.nl/ for tables and maps

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If instead Sainte-Laguë was used, CDA and PvdA would both have lost a seat in favor of PvvD and EénNL, the latter who is now not represented in Parliament at all.

For EénNL to enter parliament, another article in electoral law needs to be changed. The Netherlands DOES have an electoral threshold. Probably the lowest one in the world, but it does exist.

It is 1/150th of all valid votes, or 0.666%. This year this compares to 65,592 votes, this means that EénNL is 2,763 votes short. This results in a 6th place on the ranking of parties closest to winning 1 seat in parliament, since 1937.

http://www.nlverkiezingen.com/en/netniet.html

[freek]

This will then result in coalition talks between CDA, PvdA and CU, somewhere next January or February.

What do you think the odds of this coalition forming are?

There are two problems to solve:

1. PvdA lost a lot of votes to the SP. When PvdA is the most leftwing party of the government, and the SP is in opposition, the PvdA might be an easy target for the SP. Does the PvdA want to take the risk?

2. The CU has pretty firm stances on issues as abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage and working on Sundays. Are they able to accept compromises on these issues?

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I suppose all these things are legal in the Netherlands - do they want them all outlawed right away?
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Yes. That is what their program says.

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Yesterday Rein-Jan Hoekstra (CDA), a member of the Council of State started his work as "informateur". His job is to investigate which coalitions are the most likely to have a stable majority in parliament. It is anticipated that at first CDA, PvdA and SP will start coalition negotiations. The distance between CDA and SP is so large however that a compromise is very unlikely. This will then result in coalition talks between CDA, PvdA and CU, somewhere next January or February.

We are running ahead of schedule. Yesterday the SP concluded that the distance between them and and CDA is too large. SP leader Marijnissen needed only one meeting with CDA leader Balkenende to come that conclusion. He didn't even try to find a compromise.

This means that there will be a beauty contest between GreenLeft and ChristianUnion for the position as third party in the coalition, with CDA and PvdA.

Especially CU is gearing up for coalition talks. Last week CU leader Rouvoet said that he was aware that a majority of the Dutch population and a majority in parliament didn't agree on the party's ethical stances.

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D66 has said that they don't want to be in government this time around.

Yeah, D66 tends to lose half of their seats when they are in government. With only 3 seats they would be the smallest coalition party ever. And D66 does not feel that much friendship for CDA.

[freek]

Update: Since New Year's Day, CDA, PvdA and CU are negotiating. The negotiations seem to be going fine, but there is a lot more secrecy than we are used to. In the past, a lot of politicians tended to leak information about the progress, but there is almost complete silence now. It is expected that a coalition agreement will be reached in about 2-3 weeks, which means that there will be a government before the provincial elections March 7.

Speculation about who will be in the cabinet already started. In the Netherlands, cabinet members are not members of parliament, this means that some dark horses will become ministers too.

It is almost for sure that Jan Peter Balkenende will be prime minister again, it is also expected that PvdA leader Wouter Bos will be deputy prime minister and minister of Finance, however Bos said last week that the leader of the PvdA should be in parliament. CU leader Rouvoet will probably remain in parliament, the rest of his party group hardly has parliamentary experience.

CU will have two ministers (probably one with a GPV and one with a RPF background). The "GPV-minister" will be almost for sure be Eimert van Middelkoop, a highly respected senator and former MP. The RPF-minister will be more difficult. Apart from André Rouvoet, there are not really high profile former RPF-members who might be acceptable as minister.

[freek]

It is expected that a coalition agreement will be reached in about 2-3 weeks, which means that there will be a government before the provincial elections March 7.

Still on schedule. The 3 parties have reached a preliminary agreement now, so Balkenende can start forming his fourth cabinet somewhere next week. This will take about 2 weeks at most, so we will have a new government in less than 3 weeks. .

The cabinet will have 16 ministers, 8 CDA (this includes the prime minister), 6 PvdA and 2 ChristenUnie.