Local parties win the city council elections; GL-PvdA biggest party, FvD biggest climber
By far the majority of city council seats in the municipal elections on Wednesday went to local parties, NOS reports based on the current forecast. Far-right FvD appears to have made the most gains in this election, while left-wing GroenLinks-PvdA seems to be the biggest party.
Almost all the votes have been counted, with only Amsterdam and Hoorn’s results still missing. Later today, the votes will be recounted in all municipalities, and the results will be announced.
Strikingly, brand new parties that didn’t participate in the 2022 city council elections became the largest in several municipalities on Wednesday. In the Gelderland municipality of Westervoort, the new party Wij Westervoort won over 33 percent of the votes. In Olderbroek in the same province, 32 percent of voters chose Christelijk Verbond Oldebroek, a split-off from the local SGP.
In the Noord-Holland municipality of Uitgeest, nearly a fifth of voters chose newcomer Onafhankelijk Uitgeest. A new party also became the largest in Goeree-Overflakkee, Hardenberg, Best, Stede Broec, and on Texel.
After the local parties, the far-right Forum voor Democratie (FvD) seems to have won the most gains in these elections, partly due to the party participating in twice as many municipalities as last time. FvD’s voters quadrupled to around 300,000. The party is likely to win one or more seats in all the municipalities where FvD participated.
“We have a foot in the door everywhere. It is a fantastic evening,” said Lidewij de Vos, the leader of the FvD’s parliamentary faction. Parties in several municipalities have already ruled out forming a coalition with the FvD due to its candidates’ involvement in right-wing extremist groups.
GroenLinks-PvdA appears set to become the largest party with over 13 percent of the votes, down from 2022’s just under 16 percent of the votes. Last night, GroenLinks-PvdA leader Jesse Klaver still hesitated to celebrate. “There is still a great deal of uncertainty, but during the parliamentary elections, we were the largest party in eight cities,” Klaver said to NOS. “It looks like we are going to surpass that tonight. And we might well become the largest in the Netherlands.”
The VVD and CDA follow with over 11 percent of the votes each. Prime Minister Rob Jetten’s D66 appears to have a slight gain at around 9 percent of the votes.
Among the other national parties, ChristenUnie, SP, PvdD, and BIJ1 appear to be heading for losses. The SP lost half of its seats in Oss, the party’s birthplace, where it now stands at 4 seats.
JA21, BBB, Volt, 50Plus, DENK, SGP, and PVV appear to be recording slight gains. The PVV became the largest party in Zoetermeer, Papendrecht, Terneuzen, Pekela, and Stadskanaal.
A striking point is that the NSC, which won a massive 20 seats out of nowhere in the 2023 parliamentary elections and then dropped to 0 seats last year, did not win a council seat in any of the five municipalities where the party participated. NSC appeared on the ballot in The Hague, Eindhoven, Amersfoort, Apeldoorn, and Zoetermeer. In each of these municipalities, the NSC received a few hundred votes at most. Its best result was in The Hague, where the party received 649 votes.
