Amsterdam election results are in: four new parties on city council
The final results for Amsterdam's municipal elections are in. GroenLinks is the biggest party in the city, with 10 city council seats. And four parties will enter the Amsterdam city council for the first time - newcomers DENK, Bij1 and FVD, and ChristenUnie, AT5 and Het Parool report.
The seats in Amsterdam's city council are divided as follows:
- GroenLinks - 10
- D66 - 8
- VVD - 6
- PvdA - 6
- SP - 3
- PvdD - 3
- DENK - 3
- FvD - 3
- CDA - 1
- PvdO - 1
- ChristenUnie - 1
- Bij1 - 1
This is the first time in Amsterdam history that the biggest party in the council has fewer than 12 seats. The political landscape in the Dutch capital is very fragmented, both on the left wing and right wing side. This is expected to make coalition formation rather more complicated.
Former Amsterdam alderman Maarten van Poelgeest was appointed to mediate the formation process. He already started talking to parties likely to make the council on Thursday.
In terms of seats, the D66 was the biggest loser in this election, losing 6 of its 14 seats. The SP lost half of its 6 seats in the previous council, and the PvdA dropped from 10 to 5 seats.
Animal party PvdD gained two seats, going from 1 to 3. The VVD, PvdO and CDA all remained stable. The rest of the seats went to the newcomers on the council.
Counting the votes was a massive job in Amsterdam, because the votes for the referendum on the Intelligence and Security Law, and the votes for the election of district committees also had to be counted. In total more than a million votes were cast at the 559 polling stations in the city.
