Friday, 26 July 2013 - 05:50
Most Mayors From CDA
Although the CDA has halved the number of seats in the House at each of the two last elections, but the Christian Democrats still provide most mayors. Over one third of the Dutch mayors (122 on a total of 358) comes from the CDA. VVD and PvdA follow with 96 mayors and 86 respectively.
The Ministry of Interior Affairs published an overview of the Dutch mayors, their political affiliation, age, gender and time function on Wednesday. The table shows that in local government the power is still firmly in the hands of the three parties CDA, VVD and PvdA. Together the three parties account for over 80 percent of the 358 mayors in the Netherlands.
At a good distance follow D66 (23), ChristenUnie (11), GroenLinks (8) and SGP (6). The PVV and SP, both larger than the CDA in the House, have nowhere a mayor.
PvdA dominates as usual in the big cities. Seven of the ten mayors of the ten largest cities come from PvdA (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven, Tilburg, Groningen, Breda). The VVD has mayors in The Hague (the third city in the country) and Almere (number seven in the top ten). The CDA appears only once in the top ten, with a mayor in Nijmegen.
The overview shows also that the profession of mayor is still primarily a male affair. Only 70 of the 358 mayors are women.
Political Barometer
If elections were held now, the coalition parties VVD and PvdA would together get 54 seats. This is evident from the Political Barometer of investigation bureau Ipsos, which was published on Thursday. The VVD would have 31 seats, a loss of 10 compared to the elections of last September. The PvdA, would according to the Barometer have 23 seats. That's 15 less than in elections. CDA would stay stable with 13 seats. So with only 67 seats in the House, the three parties, CDA, PvdA and VVD, have 80% of all the mayor positions.