Don't enforce curfew on election days, mayors say

The Security Council, which consists of the mayors that head the Netherlands' 25 security regions, wants curfew to not be enforced on the days of the parliamentary election, they said to outgoing Minister Kasja Ollongren of Home Affairs at the council's weekly meeting on Monday, NU.nl reports.

The curfew is currently set to expire on March 15. The parliamentary election will be held on March 15, 16 and 17. If the cabinet decides to extend the curfew, there will have to be a whole lot of exceptions for the election days. The volunteers at polling stations must be exempt, as well as voters, and those who want to be present for the vote counting - a public process, Hubert Bruls, mayor of Nijmegen and chairman of the Security Council, said after the meeting.

"How are you going to do that? Do people need a declaration? That is quite a hassle," Bruls said. "An enforcer or police officer cannot tell the difference between someone who actually went to vote or someone who uses that as an excuse to be out at night. Our preference is that we do not have a curfew on the election days."

According to Bruls, the cabinet "heard" the mayors position on this. Ministers Ollongren and Hugo de Jonge of Public Health, who both attended the Security Council meeting on Monday, would not comment on the matter afterwards. 

The caretaker cabinet will discuss the coronavirus and the measures in place to curb its spread, including the curfew, early next week, according to the newspaper.