Dutch general election results by Municipality (March, 2017)

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Source: nw12398

The parties who won seats are as follows:

VVD (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid and Democratie – People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy): A centre-right Liberal party, won 33 seats, down from 41. The largest party in both 2012 and 2017, and the lead party in government between 2012 and 2017. No opinion poll had shown such a high number of seats going to the VVD for several years, so despite losing 8 seats, this was a good result for the VVD. Most polls in the last year or so predicted them to be in 2nd place with the number of seats averaging at around 25. A large part of the reason they did so well was because of their leader, Mark Rutte’s response to the current Dutch-Turkish relations ‘spat’.

PVV (Partij Voor Vrijheid – Party For Freedom): Far right, Eurosceptic, Anti-Islam party. Won 20 seats, up from 15 in 2012. Polls over the past year and beyond showed that they were likely to come first, but slipped to be consistently behind the VVD in the past week largely due to poor campaigning.

CDA (Christian Democratic Appeal): Centre to centre-right moderate party. Won 19 seats up from 13. Traditionally one of the two major Dutch parties, along with the PvdA (see below). However, in the last few elections, their support has decreased dramatically. However, this election has seen an increase in support. The ‘Christian’ part of the name no longer really has any meaning, but the name sticks.

D66 (Democrats 66, formed in 1966): Centrist Liberal party, generally social liberal on most issues, but economic liberal on, well, economic issues. Very pro-European. Won 19 seats up from 12.

SP (Socialist Party): Left wing party, with, unsurprisingly, a socialist viewpoint. Won 14 seats, down from 15.

GL (GroenLinks – GreenLeft): Left wing environmentalist party, generally considered less left wing than the Socialist Party but more left wing than the PvdA. Perhaps the biggest winner of this election, going from 4 to 14 seats.

PvdA (Partij van de Arbeid – Labour Party, literally Party of the Work): Centre-Left party, traditionally one of the main two parties with the CDA. Went into coalition with the economic liberal VVD, which was an unpopular decision with left wing voters. Undoubtedly the biggest losers in the election, going from 38 to just 9 seats, which was a large contributor to GroenLinks’ success.

CU (ChristenUnie – Christian Union): religiously motivated party, probably best described as centrist. Their religious standpoint makes them socially conservative on a lot of issues, but surprisingly socially liberal on others. Won 5 seats in both 2012 and 2017.

PvdD (Partij voor de Dieren – Party for the Animals): A party whose key issue is animal welfare, and hold a left-wing, environmentalist standpoint on other issues. Won 5 seats, up from 2.

50PLUS (50+) Elder peoples’ interests party, fairly centrist. Won 4 seats, up from 2.

SGP (Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij – Reformed Political Party): Genuinely theocratic party, for example, they only allowed women to join due to a court ruling saying they had to. Generally pretty moderate on policies in which a religious viewpoint can’t easily be made, and their politicians, from what I understand, are pretty trustworthy. They don’t change policies to attract voters, which has to lead to them steadily getting 2-3 seats for many elections. Won 3 in 2012 and 2017.

DENK: Controversial pro-immigrant party, which has been known to be highly pro-Erdogan. Won 3 seats this election, which is the first election they have contested

FvD (Forum voor Democratie – Forum for Democracy): Eurosceptic Right-Libertarian party. The new party won two seats.

A coalition needs 76 seats to govern: The 71 members of VVD, CDA and D66 are very likely to form part of the government. The CU would be a pretty good fit but would mean the government would only have 76 seats, which is enough but wouldn’t be particularly strong. The PvdA as the 4th partner would bring the total to 80, but I would think they have learned not to go into coalition with the VVD. GroenLinks would bring the total to 85, but wouldn’t necessarily make a good partner with the other 3 parties. The Socialist Party and especially the PVV are pretty much out of the running.

Image credit: kieskompas.nl

 It’s a “political compass” that shows the parties on 2 scales:
– economically: Left vs Right
– socially: Progressive vs Conservative

The coalition with VVD-CDA-D66 and 1 other party seem likely based on the results, but as this compass shows those parties will have to look for compromises on their social stances.