Rotterdam left and right parties neck-and-neck, with 70% of votes counted; Turnout rises
A left-wing and a right-wing party were in a dead heat to become the largest on the Rotterdam City Council, with nearly 71 percent of ballots in the 2026 local election counted. The fused GroenLinks-PvdA faction and the conservative populist Leefbaar Rotterdam parties were both neck-and-neck with about 24 percent of tallied ballots sorted for each of the two. Voter turnout in Rotterdam for the municipal elections on Wednesday was estimated by the city to be 40.7 percent, said Mayor Carola Schouten at City Hall after the polls closed.
For the time being, the local four-party coalition was moving towards maintaining their Council majority. Leefbaar Rotterdam could gain a seat, Denk could move up from four to five seats, D66 can hold five seats, and the VVD can hold four. That would put the coalition parties to 25 of the 45 City Council seats.
Schouten urged those gathered at City Hall during the early hours of Thursday to bear in mind that the remaining 29.2 percent of ballots can cause a dramatic swing in the final distribution of the Council seats. "I want to emphasize that this is truly a provisional result; 70.8% of the votes have been counted, but there are 67 polling stations still counting."
The preliminary total would add two seats to the left-win GroenLinks-PvdA total. The far-right faction FVD would bring its total up from one to two, while Volt, PvdD, and Bij1 all may have lost a seat. Meanwhile, 50Plus, ChristenUnie, SP, and the CDA all seem likely to remain with one representative on the Council.
Schouten said she was pleased by the increase in voter turnout, with a gain of about two percentage points compared to the previous election in 2022. She will keep her promise to city residents, and will indeed abseil down the Euromast observation tower.
Four years ago, only 38.9 percent of eligible voters in Rotterdam cast their ballot. At that time, Rotterdam had the lowest turnout in the Netherlands.
"I am pleased that it is higher, and at the same time, we still have a long way to go, because there are a great many people who have not yet made their voices heard," the mayor stated.
This turnout figure means that Schouten will soon be abseiling down the Euromast. The mayor, who has a fear of heights, promised in a video posted on social media that she would rappel down the 185-meter tower if the turnout is higher than in 2022.
"I will indeed be dangling from that mast sometime soon," she said on Wednesday night. Schouten told the NOS that she would do it "with love," but would have to wait a little longer until the renovation of the Euromast is completed.
Prime Minister Rob Jetten also said this week he also wanted to go abseiling if the national turnout is higher than the previous local election results showed. "I have informed him that I will have to do it, and that he is very welcome in Rotterdam. If the national turnout figures are also higher, I assume that the two of us will indeed go down the Euromast," said Schouten.
Schouten said she was looking forward positively to the upcoming period. "The turnout percentage is one, but many parties are naturally waiting anxiously to see what this means for their number of seats. Starting tomorrow, the process gets underway to see how a coalition can be formed. I look forward to it."
Voting for the neighborhood councils was also held in Rotterdam. The turnout for that election was 37 percent, higher than four years ago, when the percentage was 35.4 percent.
