Parliamentary candidates mostly well-educated men from the Randstad

It seems that political parties in the Netherlands used the current parliament as example when setting up their candidate lists for the parliamentary elections on March 15th. The vast majority of candidates are well-educated, have political experience and come from the Randstad. And, unless voters opt differently with their preference votes, the new parliament will be two-thirds middle age men, Trouw reports based on an analysis by the University of Leiden's Parliamentary Documentation Center.

A third of the candidates are female. And only 9 percent of all the candidates on the lists are so-called "allochtoon" - they have at least one non-Dutch parent. 

The ChristenUnie has the most candidates from the Randstad at 87 percent, closely followed by GroenLinks at 86 percent. The GroenLinks list consists mostly of Amsterdam candidates. The average is 62 percent. 

On average the parties have at most three nwe faces in a winnable position on their list. Only the PvdA has five. 

According to the PDC, the PVV also chose for many candidates from the Randsstad (65 percent), but has slightly fewer candidates who studied at a university - 54 percent The PVV's list also contains hardly any newcomers. 

The youngest candidate on the parliamentary lists is the D66's Rens Ramaekers at 26 years. 50Plus has the oldest candidate: 74-year-old Martin van Rooijen.