BBB up to 17 seats in Senate, Coalition down to 22

The farmers’ party BBB will get 17 seats in the Senate, making it by far the largest. Previous provisional prognoses by the ANP Election Service previously had Caroline van der Plas’s party at 16 seats. But after almost all the votes have been counted, the newcomer and big winner of the Provincial Council elections gets an extra seat.

The D66 will drop to 5 seats instead of the previously estimated 6, the ANP Election Service reported in its new forecast. That brings the coalition of VVD (10), D66 (5), CDA (5), and ChristenUnie (2) to 22 seats, ten fewer than the government parties now have. The Senate has 75 seats, so 38 are needed for a majority. The Rutte IV coalition already didn’t have that majority, but it will now have to gather more support from the opposition to get policy through the Eerste Kamer.

The CDA, in particular, lost heavily in the provincial elections. The party went from 9 to 5 seats in the Senate. The other coalition parties each lost two seats. VVD went from 12 to 10, D66 from 7 to 5, and ChrsitenUnie from 4 to 2.

Groenlinks and PvdA, which will form one faction in the Senate, will together have 15 seats, with 8 and 7, respectively. That is one more than the two parties now have. The VVD will be the third-largest faction with 10 seats.

FvD, the party that became the largest in the Senate in 2019 with 12 seats, won 2 seats in this election. Incidentally, the party had already lost 11 senators because they split off into three other factions. The rest of the Senate will consist of PVV (5, remains the same), PvdD (4, was 3), SP (3, was 4), and JA21 (3, had 7 as the Nanninga faction). Newcomer Volt, 50Plus, SGP, and OSF each get 1 seat. The last remaining seat could go to either the PVV or SGP.

The ANP Election Service calculated the new prognosis based on the provisional results of all municipalities, 95 percent of the votes counted and Amsterdam, and the provisional results from Dutch people living abroad, which the municipality of The Hague provided on Sunday. The results of the people who voted on the BES islands have not yet been submitted, but it involves relatively few voters.

The new members of the Provincial Councils and electoral colleges will elect the senators at the end of May. The Council members aren’t obliged to vote for a candidate from their own party, but that usually happens. Parties can also still make agreements among themselves to secure Senate seats.