VVD wants 3-seat threshhold for parliament; D66 wants to ban parties with 1 member

The VVD wants an electoral threshold of 2 percent, or three seats for entering the Tweede Kamer. The D66 wants to mandate the “internal democracy” of political parties, which would ban one-member parties like Geert Wilders’ PVV. Parliamentarians for the two parties submitted these proposals during a parliamentary debate on Wednesday.

According to VVD MP Silvio Erkens, making it so that parties can’t enter parliament with less than 2 percent of the votes would counter the fragmentation in politics. “The large number of parties ensure that political parties in the Tweede Kamer are increasingly concerned with each other and less with the content,” he said, according to ANP.

The current electoral threshold is effectively 0.67 percent - one of the 150 seats in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament. At a 2 percent threshold, Volt and JA21 wouldn’t be in the current parliament. ChristenUnie and SGP would’ve just made it with 2.04 and 2.08 percent of the votes respectively.

D66 parliamentarian Joost Sneller proposed establishing in law that political parties must also be internally democratic. That would preclude a party with only one member, like the PVV. The Political Parties Act is currently under revision, but states that a political party can only be banned if it “poses an actual and serious threat to the fundamental principles of the democratic constitutional state.” The only requirement is that a political party must be an association.

But Sneller is uncomfortable with the idea that a political party can exist with one person having all the say. The PVV has Geert Wilders as the only member and a foundation as a legal entity in which Wilders also has the say. “The formal requirement that a political party is an association can turn out to be an empty shell if the only member announces a membership freeze,” Sneller said, according to the Volkskrant. “As supporting organizations in our democracy, parties must also adhere to the rules of democracy themselves.”

NSC Minister Judith Uitermark of Home Affairs will soon present a bill to amend the Political Parties Act by adding requirements regarding parties’ transparency. They’ll have to provide insight into their finances, internal organization, their advertising methods, and how they compile candidate lists and the party board. Sneller wants her to add the “minimum material requirements for internal party democracy.”

It is not clear whether either proposal will get majority support.