Dutch General Election

All polling-stations in the Netherlands just closed and public broadcaster NOS and ANP, leading news agency of the Netherlands, presents a prognosis of the results of the Dutch General Election, 2006: CDA 43 seats, PvdA 35, SP 24, VVD 21, GroenLinks 8, D66 2, Christen Unie 5, SGP 2, Geert Wilders's Partij voor de Vrijheid 6, Marco Pastors's EénNL 1 and the Partij voor de Dieren 3. Logo of the SP, the Dutch Socialist Party (Socialistische Partij) of Jan Marijnissen Update - According to the above mentioned prognosis Jan Peter Balkenende's Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) will lose one seat and as result the party likely remains the biggest party in the Dutch Lower House (Tweede Kamer). The PvdA, the social democrats of Wouter Bos, will lose 7 seats, probably most of them to the SP, the Socialist Party of Jan Marijnissen, the big winner of this election. The SP wins no fewer than 15 seats. Also Geert Wilders's right-wing Party for Freedom (PvdV, "Partij van de Vrijheid'

83.1% Of the votes are counted and the election-results are assuming a definitive shape. Balkenende's CDA gets 41 seats (loses 3), the social democrats of the PvdA lose 9 seats and ends up with 9 seats. Current member of Balkenende's government the VVD loses 6 seats. Big winners are likely Jan Marijnissen's SP (Socialist Party) (wins 16 seats, gets 25 seats) and Geert Wilders's PvdV (Party for Freedom) (1 seat now, wins 8). Especially the success of the latter is remarkable, because public opinion poll's didn't predict it. It shows that anti-immigrant sentiment, especially anti-muslim sentiment is still alive. Dutch General Election, CDA, PvdA, Geert Wilders, PvdV, Socialist Party

Although the main left party of the Netherlands, the PvdA of Wouter Bos loses 10 of the 150 Lower House seats, all left parties together (PvdA, Socialist Party, GreenLeft) win 6 seats. 24% of the voters of the Socialist Party, once founded in October 1971 as a Maoist party, voted on the center-left PvdA during the elections of 2002. 31% of its voters didn't vote at all in 2002. The main scions on the Pim Fortuyn tree, Marco Pastors's EénNL 1, successor of the Pim Fortuyn's LPF List Five Fortuyn (Lijst Vijf Fortuyn) and Hilbrand Nawijn's Party for the Netherlands (Partij voor Nederland) get no seat at all. Geert Wilders's anti-immigrant Party for Freedom (Partij van de Vrijheid) gets nine seats, but is not a scion of the Pim Fortuyn tree although 24% of his voters voted on the LPF in 2002. 43% of voters of Geert Wilders and Party for Freedom didn't vote at all during the elections of 2002 In port city Rotterdam, which happens to be the home base of this blogger, the PvdA re

According to research bureau Foquz Etnomarketing most members of the big ethnic minorities in the Netherlands voted on one of the left wing parties last Wednessday. Of the Moroccans even more 90%. Two-third of them voted on the PvdA, as did almost half of the Surinam voters and more than one-third of the Turkish voters. Remarkably, 12.3% Of the Turkish votes went to the center-left / liberal Democrats 66 ("Democraten 66', "D66' in short) of Alexander Pechtold. On its website public television news show NOS Journaal suggests that the explanation for the popularity the D66 among Turkish voters is PvdA's decision to remove Erdinç Saçan of the candidate list, because of his refusal to fully acknowledge the Armenian genocide, bred bad blood among the Turkish electorate. However, Foquz also states that the PvdA remains very popular among Turks as 35,8% of them voted on the Dutch Labour Party. Dutch General Election, D66, PvdA, Erdinç Saçan, Armenian Genocide

VVD Minister Rita Verdonk triumphant after she learned that she had won more voters than VVD leader Mark Rutte Today the final election-results were declared with a remarkable result as far as the center-right party VVD of Mark Rutte is concerned. After former political leader of the VVD Jozias van Aartsen resigned Rutte had to compete with hard-line Minister for Integration and Immigration Rita Verdonk for the party's leadership. Rutte was elected by 51.5% of the VVD members and could count on the support of the VVD leadership. The Dutch voters decided otherwise. During the General Election, which were held last Wednessday and during which the VVD lost 6 seats in the Dutch Lower House, 553,200 of them voted on Rutte and 620,555 on Verdonk. According to Dutch public television news show NOS Journaal it was the first time in the history of the Dutch parliament that the number two of a party beat the leader. Maybe even more remarkable: Verdonk apparently didn't feel uncomfortable a