504 women elected to city councils with preferential votes
In the municipal elections on March 18, 504 women were elected to the new municipal councils through preferential votes, the Stem op een Vrouw foundation calculated. That number was lower at the previous city council elections in 2022, when 459 women won seats through preferential votes, NOS reports.
According to Stem op een Vrouw, which advocates for more women in politics, at least one woman was elected through preferential votes in 237 of the 340 municipalities where elections were held. Of all voters, 44.4 percent voted for a woman. A total of 36.9 percent of the elected council members are women, about the same as in 2022.
440 men also secured city council seats through preferential votes. The foundation called it noteworthy that this number is lower than the number of women elected through preferential votes, as only 32 percent of the candidates were women.
About 43 percent of the 340 new municipal councils consist of at least half women. Relatively, the most women were elected in Heemstede, where women hold 13 of the 21 council seats. Montfoort is at the bottom of the list with only one woman on its city council of 15.
Earlier this month, AD noticed an interesting trend with preferential votes. For many parties that won one seat in the municipal council, it wasn’t the male lead candidate who won that seat, but the female second candidate. This happened remarkably often with the pro-European party Volt.
