Exit polls are predicting the following:

CDA: 13.6% (- 11.4)
VVD: 20.0% (+ 1.9)
PvdA: 17.5% (- 0.4)
PVV: 11.8% (+ 11.8)
SP: 10.7% (- 4.1)
D66: 8.0% (+ 5.4)
GL: 6.4% (+ 0.3)
CU/SGP: 6.0% (- 2.8)
PvdD: 1.9% (- 0.5)
Others: 1.3% (- 3.0)

I’ll work these percentages out in seats soon, or maybe I’ll just wait for Dutch television to do it for me!

21:38 – One result is already in – the small island of Vlieland north of Friesland. It doesn’t entirely match up with the predicted trend, as the PvdA has gained a few percent there. The prediction for the “Others” category includes the regional parties under the OSF (Independent Senate Group). If they’ve really lost that much of the vote, their seat could be in trouble.

21:48 – Second result is in: Rozendaal in Gelderland. Gains for D66, VVD and PVV (although at 6%, well below the predicted national average). Also a small gain for GroenLinks of 0.2%, but all the other parties have lost ground.

21:59 – I was going to post the current predictions for the make-up the Senate, but with the results from only two small councils in, they’re rather distorted (i.e. the current results have the PvdA gaining five seats, which I can tell you is NOT going to happen unless the polls have been wildly inaccurate, and that would be very unusual).

22:06 – Third result: Schiermonnikoog (another of the small islands north of Friesland). Large swing away from the PvdA of 5%, but they remain the largest party there despite a strong challenge from the VVD. The CDA has not lost as much ground here as in Vlieland and Rozendaal, but that’s still a negative swing of 5%. D66 went from 2.4% to 7.0%, and one percent gain for GroenLinks. The other notable result is that the Friesian National Party has lost a percent in both Vlieland and Schiermonnikoog. While these places are not FNP strongholds, it looks like they might lose a seat in the provincial parliament. As the largest party in the OSF, it’s not a good sign for the independents.

22:14 – Zuidhorn (Groningen) has reported in – the largest result so far. VVD, D66 have gained votes, everyone else has lost them. I’ll stop mentioning the PVV unless there’s a big result, as obviously they’re going to gain everywhere since this is their first provincial elections. I mentioned in my preview post the other day that the PVV isn’t popular in the northern provinces, and this shows in the three results from the north so far: ranging from 5 – 8%, they’re all well below the predicted national average.

22:20 – Boxmeer (Noord Brabant) has come in: this is the home of SP parliamentary leader Emile Roemer, and it’s a big win for the SP. They’ve increased their vote from 23% to 31% to come out on top. The CDA has been crunched here, falling from 43% to 24%. The PvdA lost 4.5%, with a 3% gain to the VVD to bring them to third place with 17%. A small gain for GroenLinks, and D66 have more than tripled to 4.5%. The PVV managed 10% here, their best result so far, but certainly won’t be their best for the night.

22:35 – Results are starting to stream in – seven more since Boxmeer, so I’m going to be more picky and focus on unusual results and large cities.

22:42 – Winsum (Groningen) isn’t a large city, but given my interest in the province of Groningen, I’ll take a look at this one. As with elsewhere, the CDA has been smashed, going from 26% to 15%. Gains for VVD, D66, GroenLinks, and also the PvdA, which has become the largest party. Once again, the PVV’s result is below-average at 5.3%.

23:00 – Okay, results are coming in very quickly, so a couple of points:
* As with the national elections last year, the demise of the CDA is causing the SGP or SP to suddenly become the highest-polling party in a number of areas – for the SGP, in the Bible Belt, and the SP are taking over in the (formerly) industrial areas of the east.
* The first results have come in from Limburg, one of the PVV’s strongholds, and while they haven’t topped the poll anywhere yet, they came second to the VVD in Roermond with 19%, and their results in the southern parts of the country are all in double-digits.

23:05 – First really big result for the PVV comes from the Limburg council of Kerkrade. They’ve topped the poll with 25% with the PvdA in second and a big loss to SP (down 12.4%), who came second by a couple of percent to the CDA last time. In a number of southern councils where the PVV aren’t able to match the CDA, they’re still polling very close to or more than the PvdA. In other news, the CDA super-stronghold of Tubbergen remains so, but this time with “only” 55% voting for the Christian Democrats, as opposed to 74% in 2007. The PVV (9.3%) and VVD (+5%) are the main beneficiaries, although D66, GroenLinks and the PvdA have all made modest gains.

23:12 – The PVV continues to smash its way through Limburg, polling 18.9% in Meerssen, not far behind the CDA at 19.7% (down from 41.5%) and 23.2% in Simpleveld (CDA holds on to top the poll with 24.6%). They are going to have a big impact on the Limburg provincial parliament, and could well end up being the largest party there.

23:45 – First big cities have come in: Amsterdam and Wageningen. In Amsterdam, the PvdA has bucked the trend and achieved a 5% swing to 29% to remain the highest-polling party. The PVV comes in at 8.8%, with the other big winner D66, jumping from 6% to 15% and bumping the VVD off second place. This isn’t a surprise, as D66 always do particularly well in the large cities. All other parties have lost ground – GroenLinks and SP have lost 5% and 8% respectively, and the CDA, never popular in atheist Amsterdam have been reduced to a hapless 3% of the vote. In Wageningen, D66 have quadrupled their vote to 19% and are equal first with the PvdA. GroenLinks remains in second place, holding on to their 16% from 2007. In case you hadn’t noticed, Wageningen is a fairly left-leaning city.

23:57 – Arnhem, Delft and Rotterdam are in:
ARNHEM: PvdA remains largest with a small negative swing. Only real movement here is D66 doing very well again, up 9% to 13% and fourth place, the SP losing several percentage points and therefore being replaced by the VVD in second place. CDA humiliated once again, reduced to single figures, and the PVV polling 10%.
DELFT: D66 has exploded back to top the poll with 18.5%, PvdA in second with 18%, followed by the VVD at 16%, and with the PVV, SP and GroenLinks polling 10%.
ROTTERDAM: Big story here is that the PVV has come in second with 16.7%; PvdA still the largest on 24% – managing to increase its vote by a percent. Heavy losses to the CDA and SP, strong gains for D66. I think the PvdA would be feeling somewhat relieved, as there would have been concern that the PVV could poll over 20% here.

0:05 – Den Haag has come in (The Hague), and it will be interesting to see how well the PVV does here considering its strong showing at council elections last year. The PvdA remains the largest party with a small positive swing to 22.5%, and the PVV has come in third with 14.7%, well behind VVD with 19.8%. D66 pops up to fourth on 11.8%, with the usual story elsewhere.

0:12 – The PVV have topped the poll in another two Limburg councils: Venlo and Sittard-Geelen. They are currently predicted to gain 11 seats with 21.5% of the vote, beating CDA which is currently at 10 seats and 18.3% in what was once fairly safe territory for them. Haarlem is the latest large city to report in, but the story there is the same as in other cities: PvdA holds the top spot, gains for D66, losses for others, etc. What is interesting is that SP is doing badly in the cities, but still holding strong in the eastern areas of the country, suggesting a retreat to their base after the spectacular results of the last election cycle.

0:16 – Two cities I’m always interested in have just reported: Groningen and Nijmegen.
GRONINGEN: PvdA remains largest by far with 24.2%, D66 pips SP to the post for second (the latter lost 5%, the former gained 9%), VVD in fourth with a small increase, and GroenLinks drops to fifth with a loss of 2.3%. The PVV has only managed 5% and the CDA has been reduced to 6.3%
NIJMEGEN: Arguably the most left-wing city in the country, and this hasn’t changed: the SP topped the poll last time but has been hit hard, allowing the PvdA to reclaim first place even with a slight swing against them. Still, SP’s result of 17% is one of their better showings. D66 has increased their vote fivefold to come in third with just under 15%, GroenLinks in fourth with just over 14%, and VVD gains a percent to come in fifth place with 12.2%. Remarkably the PVV managed 7% here.

0:37 – The lay of the land is certainly in for a major shake-up. Here’s a map of the Netherlands after the last provincial elections in 2007, with each council area filled in with the colour of highest-polling party there:

As we saw in the council and national elections, the green bits (CDA) will receed, to be replaced by whatever colour they use for the PVV, and expect to see more of the SP red and SGP yellow. The PvdA pink will probably expand, more out of being the last one standing than anything else.

Here’s what the map looked like after the 2010 national elections, to give you an idea of where the changes may occur (beware the slightly different colour scheme):

0:43 – Still some results trickling in; about 63% of the votes have been counted, even though only a third of council areas have reported in. Time to look at the predicted Senate make-up:

CDA: 11 (-10)
VVD: 16 (+2)
PvdA: 15 (+1)
PVV: 10 (+10)
SP: 8 (-4)
GL: 4 (–)
CU: 2 (-2)
D66: 6 (+4)
PvdD: 1 (–)
SGP: 1 (-1)
50+: 1 (+1)
OSF: 0 (-1)

It’s looking more and more certain that the Independents have lost their Senate seat, held since 1995. I can’t help but be saddened by this, as the seat represented a variety of interests that would otherwise rarely be heard at the national level. However, the Friesian National Party seems to have lost at least one seat in Friesland’s provincial parliament, and given that many of the other regional parties only had one seat in their respective parliaments, only a few need to drop out and the number needed to retain that Senate seat suddenly becomes unattainable.

0:57 – Utrecht has just come in, and it’s another “win” for the PvdA at 19.7%, despite a strong challenge from D66 at 17.3%. GroenLinks rounds out the top three with a slight drop to 17%, and the VVD not far off at 16.5%. The PVV has managed 7.7% here.

I haven’t mentioned the 50+ party much, but they’ve been consistently polling 2-3% or there abouts across the country (with a current best of 9.2% in Haaksbergen, which should be enough to win a seat in many of the provincial parliaments, and therefore eventually a seat in the Senate.

1:07 – Maastricht, the capital of Limburg (and a very nice city if I may say so myself) has held out against the PVV to an extent: while the PvdA came first with 18.8%, Geert Wilders’ party was not far off, coming in second on 16.6%. Once again the CDA and SP suffered heavy losses, and D66 managed almost 10%, being the only party to increase its vote.

1:09 – It’s worth noting that if the current predicted make-up of the Senate is accurate, the CDA / VVD + PVV coalition would have 38 seats, the smallest majority possible. This is what they’ve been aiming for, so it would be a big win for them, and a heavy loss to the left-wing parties who have tried to work together as much as possible in order to prevent this. It is still possible that the CDA could lose another seat, but given that most of the major cities have reported in and its still on 12 seats, the governing coalition might just have crossed the finishing line.

1:15 – Here’s Leiden, and a resurgent D66 has edged ahead of the PvdA in votes to take top spot, both parties on 18.8%, with no other significant results. Haren has also reported its results, and my previous council of residence has kept the VVD in first place with a small positive swing to 22.8%, followed by the PvdA at 18.6%, CDA at 12.7% and D66 at 11.2%. As in much of the northern provinces, the PVV has polled well below the national average, managing 5.4% here.

1:26 – I’m looking at the list of councils which haven’t reported in yet, and the ones I’ll hang around for include the cities of Deventer, Leeuwarden, Almere and Tilburg.

Results from Lelystad, the capital of Flevoland, the twelfth province which was created a few decades ago with reclaimed land, see the VVD (22.6%) easily  retain top position, but the PvdA (18.9%) has held off a challenge from the PVV (16%) for second place. The SP is the only other party which managed to poll in double-digits at 10.5% (down from 18.2% in 2007).

1:40 – Leeuwarden, the capital of Friesland, has stayed PvdA with the social democrats polling 30%. VVD in second with 13.1%, and the SP has still polled a respectable 11.6% despite losing almost 3%. The CDA’s horror-run continues as it drops 7% to 9.5%. GroenLinks and PVV are tied on 8.2%.

1:48 – Tilburg and Almere:
TILBURG: Being a southern city, I guess it’s to be expected that the PVV will do fairly well here, and they come in fourth with 12.9% behind VVD at 18%, PvdA at 17% and SP at 14.7%. It’s a disappointing result for SP, who won Tilburg last time with 25%.
ALMERE: In last year’s council elections, the PVV came first, but there is no repeat of this here, although Wilders’ can be pleased with 18.5% and third place behind VVD (23.4%) and PvdA (19.6%). Big losses to the SP and CDA here as well.

It’s easy to overlook the SP in the frenzy of the CDA’s numbers being cut in half, but the SP will lose one-third of their 12 Senators, and this is because of their relatively poor results in the cities.

1:53 – Here comes Deventer, which hosts a gigantic book market each year, complete with a street made-up to look like something from a Charles Dickens novel. In any case, the PvdA has actually increased their vote by 2% here to easily retain first place with over 27%. The VVD (17.2%) has moved into second with the demise of the CDA, who are tied with D66 in third on 11% a loss of 10% since 2007.

2:00 – It looks like the battle for the final Senate seat will come down to a CDA vs GroenLinks contest. This is all very speculative, as we don’t know which way the remaining independents will vote once it is clear they cannot retain their seat. Either way, if this is the case, this will make all the difference: if GroenLinks wins that seat, the current government won’t have a majority in the Senate; if the CDA wins the seat, the government will.

2:50 – It looks like we’re more or less done with the results for now, so a quick overview before I sign-off, starting with turnout, which looks to be up over the 50% mark after 46.3% in 2007, indicating that some people grasped the importance of these particular provincial elections.

* The winners: VVD, PVV, D66, 50+ and possibly GroenLinks. The losers are the CDA, CU, SGP, SP, and the OSF. No change for the PvdA and PvdD.

* We won’t know the exact make-up of the new Senate until 23 May, which is when the provincial MPs will elect the Senators.

* I haven’t had time to look at each provincial parliament in depth, but a quick glance indicates that the PVV will be the largest party in Limburg with 20% of the vote. The provinces of Groningen, Friesland, Overijssel and Drenthe were the only ones where the PVV failed to poll at least 10%, although they came close in Drenthe with 9.8%. Groningen was the least PVV-friendly (7.7%), but even there Wilders’ party outpolled GroenLinks (7.2%) and almost outpolled D66 (7.8%), meaning that it will still be a significant player in the Groningen provincial parliament. However, it will have a much greater impact in provinces like Zeeland, Limburg, Noord Brabant and Zuid Holland where the PVV is one of the largest parties, if not the largest party.

Only time will tell.

Here’s the current state of play (based on the 2007 results, there may have been a few changes), with number of overall seats in provincial parliaments for each party followed by the number of Senators they have:

CDA: 151 (21)
PvdA: 114 (14)
VVD: 102 (14)
SP: 83 (12)
CU: 35 / 38* (4)
SGP: 13 / 16* (4)
GL: 32 (4)
D66: 9 (2)
PvdD: 9 (1)
Others: 13 (1)
TOTALS: 564 (75)

*CU and SGP ran joint tickets in two provinces which resulted in a total of three seats.

“Others” are almost always regional parties who frequently run on platforms of more autonomy for their province – the most successful of these is the Fryske Nasjonale Partij (Friesian National Party) in Friesland, which does not advocate for Friesland to become its own country as the name suggests, but is a strong proponent of Friesian culture and its language, which is recognised in its own right. They usually poll around 10% of the vote, which translated to 5 seats at the 2007 elections.

For a party breakdown by province, click here and scroll down to the pie charts near the bottom of the page. If you see any party acronyms you don’t recognise, that’s one of the regional parties.

Before I preview the elections on Wednesday, a quick explanation of how the voting works. While the provincial elections, where the people vote, use the usual list / PR system that local and national elections use, when it comes to provincial MPs electing the Senate, there is one important difference: weighted votes. The formula is: residents of the province divided by the number of provincial MPs times 100 equals the weight of one provincial MP’s vote. For example, lets say province X has 600,000 residents (i.e. not just voters, everyone living there) and 50 provincial MPs. 600,000 divided by (50 x 100) = 120. This number is then used when working out how many seats a particular party has won, using the usual d’Hondt PR system the Dutch use everywhere. Essentially, the weighted vote seems to ensure that the votes of some provincial MPs (where there is a higher MPs : voters ratio) do not count more than others.

The threshold for a seat in each province will be:

GRONINGEN: 2.33% (43 seats)
FRIESLAND: 2.33% (43 seats)
DRENTHE: 2.44% (41 seats)
OVERIJSSEL: 2.13% (47 seats)
FLEVOLAND: 2.56% (39 seats)
GELDERLAND: 1.82% (55 seats)
UTRECHT: 2.13% (47 seats)
NOORD-HOLLAND: 1.82% (55 seats)
ZUID-HOLLAND: 1.82% (55 seats)
ZEELAND: 2.56% (39 seats)
NOORD-BRABANT: 1.82% (55 seats)
LIMBURG: 2.13% (47 seats)

These elections are particularly interesting because the current government does not hold a majority in the Senate, which has the power to block bills. Given the numerous controversial policies of Rutte I, both the government and the opposition have a lot at stake here.

The wildcard factor will be the PVV. They decided not to take part in the last provincial elections, so are unrepresented in the Senate and all 12 provincial parliaments. This will obviously change, with Geert Wilders’ party polling very well. Expect big breakthroughs in provinces like Zuid-Holland and Limburg, PVV strongholds at the recent national elections.

All this focus on the national scene will make it hard for regional parties to push their agenda, and while their single seat in the Senate has been stable since 1995, this could be a test for them. The Friesian National Party will most likely continue to do well, but others may struggle in what will be presented as a battle between the left-wing opposition parties (PvdA, GroenLinks, SP, D66) and the right-wing governing parties and their allies (CDA, VVD, PVV, SGP).

In 2007, the CDA polled the highest in all the provinces bar four: Groningen and Drenthe (where the PvdA came out on top), and Flevoland and Noord-Holland (where the VVD garnered the most votes). Expect this to change radically this time around. I’d be surprised if the CDA “won” more than a couple of provinces – most likely the VVD and PVV will make inroads into other areas of the country. For the left-wing / progressive parties, D66 looks to continue its remarkable return from near oblivion, while the PvdA and SP are set for losses and GroenLinks looks to be fairly stable.

The most recent opinion poll by Synovate (24 February) predicts the following numbers in the Senate:

CDA: 10 (-11)
VVD: 16 (+2)
PvdA: 11 (-3)
SP: 8 (-4)
GL: 4 (–)
CU: 3 (-1)
SGP: 2 (–)
D66: 7 (+5)
PvdD: 1 (–)
OSF: 1 (–)*
PVV: 12 (+12)
50+: 1 (+1)**

* OSF = Onafhankelijk Senaats Fractie (Independent Senate Group), the combined list of the regional parties.
** The 50+ party focuses on issues relevant to senior citizens: aged care, pensions, etc. There have been several of these types of parties in the past, and while some have been successful in winning seats in parliament, they have never lasted very long.

The above poll has CDA + VVD + PVV at 38 seats, the smallest possible majority, giving them a clear path to implement the policies in the governing accord. However, one or two seats less and they would be relying upon the SGP, who will not necessarily be supportive of everything they do. Furthermore, the governing parties have not set up any list alliances (see explanation here) in the provinces, which is a particularly risky strategy to take, given that PvdA, GroenLinks and D66 are setting up as many as they can. What is means is that when the count has reached the last few seats, the progressive parties will pool their vote and act as one list, while the CDA, VVD and PVV will remain separate. The governing parties could potentially lose a seat or two in a number of provinces as a result of this, which could be the difference between them gaining a majority in the Senate, or falling just short.

So that’s a bit of an overview, hastily assembled. As usual, I’ll be liveblogging the results – coverage starts at 20:00 GMT on Wednesday 2 March.

Only a few days (7 September) after the PVV withdrew from negotiations with VVD and CDA, Klink resigned from parliament. The circumstances surrounding this decision suggest that he was under a lot of pressure from party colleagues to change his tune or leave. With Klink out of the way, the PVV indicated its willingness to enter talks again. The CDA MPs met behind closed doors and agreed to continue negotiations, keeping in mind that a special congress of CDA members could still veto any coalition agreement.

By the end of September the governing accord was complete and approved by the VVD, PVV and CDA MPs — unanimously by the first two, with an “overwhelming majority” by the CDA, suggesting that Ferrier and Koppejan voted against. The accord established a minority government: only VVD and CDA would have positions in cabinet, while the PVV would provide “tolerance”. This means that the PVV will not support any no-confidence motions from the opposition parties provided that the question at hand has to do with the governing accord.

Nevertheless, it all came down to the CDA congress on 2 October. Internal polls suggested 80% of attendees would vote for cooperation with the PVV, but on the day only 68% supported this course of action. While still a clear mandate for the CDA to enter into government, Ferrier and Koppejan said they were heartened by the level of support for their position. In any event, the CDA MPs voted to enter into a coalition government with the VVD the next week, and the new cabinet was sworn in on 14 October 2010. For those interested in the details of who the ministers are, click here.

The internal fallout of this new coalition within the CDA and VVD ranks has been surprisingly muted. Former CDA Prime Minister Dries van Agt initially threatened to resign from the CDA and join D66 or GroenLinks if his party went into a coalition with PVV, but later changed his mind and remains a compliant member of the party. Former VVD cabinet member Gijs de Vries was less reluctant to follow-up on his threats: he resigned from the VVD and applied to join D66, saying that it was not in the national interest to reward a party with power which is internally undemocratic (Geert Wilders is the only member of the PVV and makes all its key decisions) and fosters xenophobia and discrimination. It is unclear how many rank-and-file members have left the two parties.

Since then there have been a few minor incidents, the most telling one was the case of CDA cabinet member Marlies Veldhuijzen van Zanten-Hyllner, who has a Swedish passport as well as a Dutch one. The PVV, which is opposed to dual-nationalities, insisted that she should renounce her Swedish citizenship. Unsurprisingly, no other party in parliament thought this was a particularly good idea, although it did expose some hypocrisy on the part of the VVD, who had demanded that former PvdA minister Nebahat Albayrak give up her Turkish passport when she was sworn in to cabinet. Rutte countered that while Turkey made certain demands of their citizens (including national service), Sweden did not. Either way, both Albayrak and Veldhuijzen van Zanten-Hyllner remain in parliament and retain their dual-nationality status.

The new government, to be known henceforth as Rutte-I, has already signalled a number of controversial changes it wants to make. They include:

* Reducing the number of elected officials across the country and all levels of government. Fewer councillors, members of provincial parliaments, and national MPs. The Tweede Kamer will be reduced from 150 MPs to 100, and the Eerste Kamer from 75 Senators to 50.
* More new nuclear power stations will be built (NL currently has one, in the town of Borssele).
* Small cafes (less than 70 square metres in area) will be exempted from smoking bans.
* The speed limit on highways will be increased to 130km/h.
* An expansion of CCTV and the introduction of stop-and-search powers.
* A ban on the burqua and similar items of clothing.
* A watering-down of labour laws to allow for more “flexibility” in workplace agreements.

However, the problem with this is that the government does not have a majority in the Eerste Kamer, which can block bills. It very rarely does this, but any time it does usually results in the government plunging into crisis. The Eerste Kamer is indirectly elected. On 2 March, the Dutch will go to the polls to elect members to the twelve provincial parliaments. These MPs will then elect the Eerste Kamer. Unsurprisingly, they usually follow party lines, and therefore this government’s first test will be to see if they can achieve a majority in the Eerste Kamer as well. Current polls suggest this is not unrealistic, but it will depend on to what extent people vote for national issues rather than provincial ones.

Naturally, I’ll be liveblogging the results of the provincial elections. Coverage starts at 20:00 GMT on Wednesday 2 March.

In other news, GroenLinks has a new parliamentary leader after Femke Halsema decided to call it quits after almost 13 years as an MP, 8 of which as parliamentary leader. While Halsema had clearly stated before the elections that this would be her last term, many have been surprised by her early exit. Jolande Sap, who was second on the party’s list at the national elections, has been elected new parliamentary leader by the other MPs. While speculation about reasons for resignation is often overdone, one logical explanation is that Halsema wished to give her successor enough time to build up a stronger national profile, and what better time to do this than during an election campaign? The inherent instability of the current government means that it is highly unlikely that the next national elections will be as far away as 2014. With Halsema’s departure, only Ineke van Gent remains from the “class of ’98″, the election at which GroenLinks achieved its best result of 11 seats.

It is interesting to note that parliamentary careers in the Netherlands are often relatively short when compared to other Western countries, especially in recent decades. For example, since 1988 there has only been one MP to celebrate 25 years in parliament — former SGP leader Bas van der Vlies. Many MPs will have voluntarily left long before they’ve served more than a few terms. In comparison to Australia, the current Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott were first elected to the House of Representatives in 1998 and 1994 respectively, and show absolutely no sign of leaving yet.

- Justin-Paul

VVD (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie – People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy)

The VVD was founded in 1946 after a merger of the Partij van de Vrijheid or PvdV (Party of Freedom, not to be confused with Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom) with a number of dissents from the VDB (Free-Thinking Democratic Union), which merged with the Social Democratic Labourers Party (SDAP) to form the PvdA. They were led by Pieter Oud and referred to as the Oud-committee, and their objection was that the PvdA was becoming too much of a social democrat party for their liking.

While the VVD debuted with a very respectable seven seats in its first Tweede Kamer elections (1948) and steadily increased their representation throughout the 1950s, it found itself stuck at around 16 or 17 seats for much of the 1960s. The breakthrough came in the early 70s, as the 31-year-old Hans Wiegel (still a dominant figure today) led the party to win 22 seats in 1972 and further increase this to 28 in 1977. The party has found itself oscillating wildly between government and opposition since then, making huge gains in 1982 (36 seats) and 1998 (38 seats), but suffering regular slumps as well, polling only 22 seats in 1989 and 2006.

The VVD’s key principles have always focused on the rights of in the individual, which has meant support for issues such as same-sex marriage and the legalisation of abortion, coupled with promotion of free-market economics and personal responsibility. However, in recent years the VVD has swung to the right on a host of issues, most prominently immigration and law and order after some internal tussles between the moderates and right-wingers within the party. This resulted in a showdown for the leadership with Mark Rutte as the moderates candidate, and Rita Verdonk as the right-wing candidate. Rutte was victorious and Verdonk was later expelled from the parliamentary party after continued criticism of his leadership. She remained in parliament, resigning her membership of the VVD in order to begin her own political party.

Most of the VVD’s voters live in the west — specifically, the provinces of Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland, with a few smaller strongholds scattered across the country. (Click here to see map)

The VVD’s leader is Mark Rutte, and its head office is in Den Haag.

D66 (Democraten ’66 – Democrats ’99)

D66 takes its name from the year it was founded: 1966. The two key founders were journalist Hans van Mierlo, who became party leader, and Amsterdam councillor and VVD member Hans Gruijten. The new party was particularly interested in making the political system more democratic, but soon adopted a progressive policy platform. Over the years, it has come to be known as the party most dedicated to democratic reforms such as referenda, elected mayors, and an elected Prime Minister. Beyond that, it advocates environmental sustainability, and the rights of the individual while still retaining a sense of solidarity with others.

At the 1967 election, D66 won 7 seats, and has been in governing coalitions for 16 of its 44 years in existence. Initially, van Mierlo sought to merge D66 with the PvdA and the PPR (Party of Progressive Radicals, which would later become part of GroenLinks) to create a broad progressive movement. This attempt failed and van Mierlo eventually resigned from the leadership in 1973. His successor was Jan Terlouw, who had to deal with disastrous results at the 1974 council elections, and a general feeling within the party that it was on the verge of collapse. Terlouw decided to re-frame D66 as a liberal party and this was initially successful, resulting in 17 seats at the 1981 elections and a position in the CDA-led government. However, this coalition collapsed within a year and D66 was punished, sinking to 6 seats in parliament.

In 1986, van Mierlo returned to the leadership. D66 campaigned on progressive issues such as the emancipation of women, protection of the environment and the development of the  individual. This resulted in good gains at the ’86 and ’89 elections, but did not see D66 leave the opposition benches. In 1994 however, D66 recorded their best ever result at the national level, winning 24 seats in the Tweede Kamer and joined forces with Pvda and VVD to create the “purple” coalition, Paars. Van Mierlo became a Minister and Els Borst took over the party leadership. This seemed to be the party’s last hurrah, as it plummeted to 14 seats at the 1998 elections (but remained in Paars), and after taking part in the unpopular Balkenende III government, reached rock-bottom with just 3 seats in 2006. Since then, the leadership of Alexander Pechtold has restored faith in the party, and in 2010 it tripled its representation in the Tweede Kamer to 10 seats.

Most of D66′s support is heavily concentrated in the cities; in particular, student cities. (Click here to see map)

D66′s leader is Alexander Pechtold, and its head office is in Den Haag.

Of course, it hasn’t quite worked out that way. In previous posts, I pointed out that a number of CDA leaders and ‘prominents’ as they’re called in the Netherlands were openly opposed to working with Geert Wilders and his band of followers. This unrest continued to build in the lead-up to a special congress of the CDA membership where the proposal to work with the PVV in government would be put to a vote. Turns out that congress won’t be necessary, because Wilders has withdrawn from negotiations.

The final straw for Wilders seems to have been the letter sent by CDA negotiator and MP Ab Klink. In this letter, he stated he refused to take part in any further negotiations with Wilders and did not promise his support in parliament for a government with the PVV in it. Additionally, it appeared that he was not alone in this — another two CDA MPs have indicated their agreement with this stance. What this means is that the VVD/PVV/CDA coalition, which would have had the barest of majorities of 76 seats in the Tweede Kamer, now has only 73 guaranteed votes. It is worth noting here that the three CDA dissidents haven’t ruled out taking part in such a right-wing coalition, merely that their support could not be taken for granted.

VVD leader Mark Rutte has decided that his next step will be to write a governing accord by himself, and then see which parties will sign-on. How successful this attempt will be depends entirely on whether Rutte writes an accord which simply is a list of VVD policies, or whether he makes a genuine attempt to put something to paper which will be feasible for a number of parties. I would imagine that if Rutte fails in this attempt, the baton of coalition-forming may well be passed on to Job Cohen as leader of the second-largest party. If he fails as well, there could be new elections early next year.

Oh, and before I sign off, a special note to Australian readers worried about the situation back home: chill, okay? It’s only been two weeks since our elections, and it looks like we’ll have a government within a few days. The Dutch have been at it since June and it doesn’t look like it’ll resolve any time soon. Meanwhile, the economy hasn’t collapsed, and there haven’t been riots in the streets. Hung parliaments are a good thing. They mean compromise and negotiation are the order of the day. In my opinion, the only party which has a right to govern alone is one that polls over 50% of the primary vote.

It looks as though one of the major stumbling blocks was cuts to the budget. While all parties agreed that significant cuts were necessary, the amount they were willing to cut varied: the PvdA didn’t want to go much above 10 billion euros; the VVD wanted 20 billion but was willing to drop to 18 billion at the very least, while D66 and GL were somewhere in between. Either way, this combination looks to be well beyond rescue.

What’s next? Well, the Queen has appointed Ruud Lubbers, CDA Prime Minister from 1982-1994 as the new informateur. Lubbers held brief talks with all the party leaders, and has decided to try to the VVD/PVV/CDA option again, which would have the smallest possible majority of 76. This was probably prompted by the PvdA’s continued refusal to consider a VVD/PvdA/CDA coalition.

This weekend, the CDA MPs will meet to discuss a VVD/PVV/CDA coalition. The party is, at best, very wary of working with Geert Wilders and there would be a lot of internal dissent if it did. However, there are few other options. My hunch is that there may be new elections by the year’s end if this right-wing coalition is unable to be formed.

There is one final option, but it would be a very unusual and controversial one: the VVD admits that it has failed to put together a governing coalition, and the opportunity to lead the next government falls to the PvdA, the second-largest party in parliament. The leader of the SP, Emile Roemer, has come up with an innovative proposal, now known as the “Roemer-variant”, whereby Job Cohen (PvdA leader) would be at the head of a PvdA/CDA/SP/GL coalition (76 seats). Roemer has written a 10-page document explaining what compromises would have to be made for such a coalition to be feasible. The major stumbling block here would be the distrust between the CDA and the PvdA after the collapse of Balkenende IV. However, with the main protagonists of that tussle now retired from politics (Balkenende and Bos), there may be an opportunity to reset relations. Even if this occurred, the CDA would no doubt be as wary of entering a government with three left-wing parties as the VVD was about Paars Plus. Nevertheless, it’s an impressive proposal, and Roemer has clearly put a lot of thought into this, so it should be on the table if the current round of negotiations fail.

I suspect these negotiations may continue for a while yet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that whatever coalition emerges (assuming fresh elections aren’t called) will be an unstable one, although in this climate I tend to think that it will be. Negotiations for the first Paars governing period took months and months, and yet the government lasted almost two full terms, which is very rare in Dutch politics.

To be continued (again) …

In any event, there is certainly at least one party which mostly deserves to be called “right-wing”, along with another two parties (one no longer in existence) which have similar backgrounds and ideas.

PVV (Partij voor de Vrijheid – Party for Freedom)

The PVV is led by former VVD (Liberals) MP Geert Wilders, who quit his former party in a disagreement over whether Turkey should be allowed to eventually join the European Union (Wilders is firmly opposed). Wilders is notorious internationally for his Islamophobia; some of his policies include a ban on the construction of new mosques, a ban on immigration from “Muslim countries”, a ban on any form of headscarf, and a ban on the Qu’ran, which he called “the Islamic Mein Kampf“. Other policies include hardline approaches to crime and scepticism about climate change.

Just when you think you’ve got an idea of how Wilders and his party work, however, they surprise you with an unusual policy position. The one that caught me off-guard is that the PVV is a strident campaigner for animal rights. Not only have they called for factory farming to be phased out and animal abuse to be firmly punished, with life-long bans on owning animals to those convicted, they also want to amend the constitution to include animal rights. This position is more radical than the other parties, with the exception of the PvdD (Party for the Animals) and possibly GroenLinks.

The PVV gets most of its support from two areas of the country: Rotterdam and surrounds, and the southern province of Limburg. It does very poorly in the north and east in comparison. (Click here to see map)

Geert Wilders is the PVV’s leader; some have accused him of being a dictator because he is the party’s sole member — he decides upon all the policies and chooses all the candidates and office-bearers. Whether he will be able to continue this system with a larger parliamentary group is doubtful, and he has shown some willingness to consider other options.

TON (Trots op Nederland – Proud of the Netherlands)

While virtually no polls that I’ve seen lately expect this fledgling party to win a single seat at the elections, it is worth mentioning because of its similarities to the PVV in the sense that its leader is also a former VVD MP. Rita Verdonk was a highly divisive, hardline Immigration Minister from 2003-2006. Her handling of the Ayaan Hirsi Ali affair (more on that in another post) led to D66 (Democrats) leaving the ruling coalition, which resulted in early elections in late 2006. She then fought a battle with the moderate Mark Rutte for the leadership of the VVD. Rutte won this contest and while Verdonk was re-elected to parliament as second on the VVD ticket, she was expelled from the party in late 2007 after openly criticising Rutte’s softer approach to the issue of immigration.

Verdonk remained in parliament, and set up TON. Her party is not as stridently Islamophobic as the PVV, preferring to take a more straightforward right-wing nationalist line. In the recent council elections it won over 50 seats, which may yet lead to electoral success at the national level in the future.

Rita Verdonk is still the leader of TON, and its headquarters are in Den Haag.

LPF (Lijst Pim Fortuyn – Pim Fortuyn’s List)

The LPF no longer has seats in the Tweede Kamer or anywhere else in the country – in fact, it disbanded in early 2008 – but it played such an important part in the early 2000s that it is worth a brief mention. As the name implies, this party was created by the Pim Fortuyn after he was expelled from Leefbaar Nederland (Liveable Netherlands), a party I won’t go into much as it also belong to pages of history now. Basically, in an interview with a national newspaper only a few months before the 2002 election, Fortuyn called Islam a “backwards culture” and questioned whether the Dutch Constitution should be changed to remove the article banning any form of discrmination. This was too much for the LN, who expelled him. Fortuyn set up the LPF quite quickly, and spent the next few months putting together a candidate list. It is fairly safe to say that he attracted a lot of opportunists and his list was a motley bunch of characters from various backgrounds.

Nine days before the 2002 polls, Fortuyn was shot dead in the parking lot of the media complex in Hilversum by an animal rights activist with mental health issues, who was enraged by Fortuyn’s off-the-cuff remarks about the continuation of mink farming and a bizarre idea of storing live cattle in high-rise buildings to conserve land. It was too late for Fortuyn to be removed from ballots, so on 15 July 2002 over 1.5 million people voted for a dead man, and the LPF came out of nowhere to become the second-largest party in parliament behind the CDA, with 26 seats.

Extensive infighting plagued the LPF soon thereafter and never really died down until the party folded in 2008, by which time it had no representation in parliament anymore, having dropped to 8 seats in the 2003 election before failing to win a seat in 2006.

In terms of policy, the LPF took a right-wing populist line which was fairly inconsistent, as initially everything was based around what Fortuyn’s personal opinions were — and these were often impulses rather than coherent policy positions. After he died, one of the many bouts of infighting featured several prominent members, each claiming to be the true advocates of Fortuyn’s philosophy.

For some reason, the site I’ve been linking to in this series to show you those voter maps doesn’t have any records for the LPF that I can find, but I can remember for a fact that they were particularly strong around Rotterdam, and it’s probably safe to assume that the LPF and the PVV have similar constituencies, so Limburg would also have been an LPF stronghold.

The LPF had four leaders including Fortuyn, but the longest serving one was Mat Herben, widely considered to be the most competent and likeable of the LPF MPs.

Anyway, I’ll kick this blog back into action with an update on how negotiations for a new coalition government in the Netherlands are going.

Once the final election results are known — these were announced within a week, and the seat totals didn’t change from my last update in the liveblog post — all the party leaders take turns in visiting the Queen for a cup of tea and brief discussion, where they advise her on what kind of coalition they think the results demand. This advice is usually fair and frank; a party which polled three seats and has radically different views to everyone else will not insist that they are placed front-and-centre in any coalition government. Most leaders acknowledged the strong gains made by the VVD and PVV, and indicated that a coalition including those two parties would seem to be the logical outcome.

Since then, here’s what’s happened:

* The VVD and PVV began talks, and indicated that they wished for the CDA to join them. Together the three parties had 76 seats, the smallest possible majority. However, the CDA insisted that it would not come to the negotiating table until the VVD and PVV had worked through their differences. This never really happened, so this coalition option was put aside quite quickly.

* VVD leader Mark Rutte said that his second option was a centrist VVD/CDA/PvdA coalition. This time PvdA leader Job Cohen threw a spanner in the works, insisting that he wanted a progressive coalition, and this combination did not fulfil this criteria.

* With great reluctance, the VVD began discussions with PvdA, D66 and GroenLinks on a “Purple-Plus” coalition. After a bit of a stop-start in negotiations, it looks as though the parties will indeed form the next governing coalition, which Greens leader Femke Halsema prefers to call “Purple-Green”. The governing agreement is going to lack the detail and rigidity of those of previous governments, in recognition of the fact that there are huge differences between the VVD and the other parties. Negotiations are in full swing, with compulsory breaks whenever the Dutch soccer team is playing a World Cup match(!)

To be continued …

You can follow the results online here.

03:40 - Okay, I’m signing off for now. Almost 97% of the votes have been counted, Mark Rutte has given a cautious but enthusiastic victory speech which I don’t think gave away any clues as to who he wants to govern with. Here are the last final results for the night:

VVD: 31
PvdA: 30
PVV: 24
CDA: 21
SP: 15
D66: 10
GL: 10
CU: 5
SGP: 2
PvdD: 2

So, for the first time in history, the Dutch PM will be a member of the VVD.

03:27 - Mark Rutte has returned to the VVD election party and is giving his victory speech. The PvdA party ended on a somber note with one of their MPs thanking everyone for all their work. Cohen did not return.

02:40 - With 88% counted, the VVD has pulled ahead. They are now at 31 seats, while the PvdA has lost a seat to PvdD (Animals) and is on 30 seats. VVD leader Mark Rutte is expected to declare victory soon.

02:35 – 86% counted, and the PVV has gained a seat (now 24) at the expense of D66 (now 10). I think the VVD has won this; they’re 44,000 votes in front, which is about two-thirds of a seat. Expat votes are still to be counted, and they usually favour the VVD. While Dutch TV is not calling it until all the votes are counted, it’s hard to see the PvdA coming back from this.

02:23 - 82% counted. The VVD now has a lead of almost 30,000 votes, but there is still no end to the deadlock with the PvdA in seats; no change in any party’s number since the last time I posted a full list.

02:00 - 73% of the votes counted. The VVD has taken the lead by 1,800 votes.

VVD: 31
PvdA: 31
PVV: 23
CDA: 21
SP: 15
D66: 11
GL: 10
CU: 5
SGP: 2
PvdD: 1

01:50 - With over 68% of the vote counted, the seat numbers are almost the same (+1 to SP, -1 to CDA), but the PvdA is leading by only 10,000 votes now.

01:33 – Results are coming in very rapidly from the other cities — Den Haag, Utrecht, Groningen, Haarlem among them — so I’ll just keep posting updated national results and save the closer analysis for another day:

With around 63% of the votes counted:

PvdA: 31
VVD: 31
PVV: 23
CDA: 22
SP: 14
D66: 11
GL: 10
CU: 5
SGP: 2
PvdD: 1

In terms of raw votes, the PvdA has a lead of 35,000 over the VVD, which is more than half a seat.

00:52 - A number of large cities have come in including Rotterdam and Eindhoven. Now that 25% of the votes are counted, there’s another update:

VVD: 32
PvdA: 31
PVV: 23
CDA: 21
SP: 15
GL: 10
D66: 10
CU: 5
SGP: 2
PvdD: 1

I suspect the see-saw between the PvdA and the VVD will continue for the rest of the evening. The right-wing coalition of VVD / CDA / PVV still has 76 seats, the slimmest possible majority.

00:36 – Around 20% of the votes have been counted, and we have the first update of the national results:

PvdA: 32
VVD: 31
PVV: 23
CDA: 21
SP: 15
D66: 10
GL: 9
CU: 5
SGP: 2
PvdD: 1

So if this holds up, PvdA leader Job Cohen will be the next PM of the Netherlands. The other significant shift in this update is that GroenLinks appears to have lost some of their projected gains, which would be disappointing, but we’ll have to see what happens when the other major cities report in.

00:31 - The last time the CDA got such a hammering was 1994, when it was sent into opposition for the first time in decades and the Paars coalition of PvdA / VVD / D66. It looks like history might be repeating, albeit this time GroenLinks may join the coalition. However, it does also make a VVD / CDA / PVV coalition possible.

23:58 - First major city has come in, and its the biggest — Amsterdam. PvdA leader Job Cohen is the outgoing Mayor of the city, and his personal following has led to a swing of 5% — to 35% of the vote. The CDA, which never polls particularly well in the capital, has been reduced to a pitiful 3.3%. The other results are more or less to be expected, except that GroenLinks has remained stable at 12.6% — unusual given that Amsterdam is traditionally one of its strongholds.

23:33 - None of the major cities have finished counting, but the PVV has become the largest party in several councils in Limburg at the expense of the CDA. In some of the Bible Belt areas, the SGP has overtaken the CDA to become largest party. There has been a massive swing to the SP in Boxmeer, which is the home of SP leader Emile Roemer; it is now the largest party there with 33% of the vote.

22:50 – The council of Zuidhorn (Groningen) has announced its results. The CDA is usually the largest party by quite a bit here, but lost so much of its vote (one third) that the PvdA has become the largest party without even registering a swing.

22:47 - Given the disasterous result for the CDA, which has gone from 41 seats to 20 (from largest to fourth-largest party), Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende has announced he will resign the leadership of the CDA and leave parliament once the new government is installed.

22:34 – No new results yet aside from the another small island, Vlieland. Most of the leaders have arrived at their respective parties and have given their initial speeches.

21:54 – First results in, from the small councils of Rozendaal and the island Schiermonnikoog — they more or less match up with the general trend as predicted in the exit polls.

21:30 - The second round of exit polls have been announced:

PvdA: 31 (-2)
VVD: 31 (+8)
PVV: 22 (+13)
CDA: 21 (-20)
SP: 16 (-9)
GL: 11 (+4)
D66: 10 (+7)
CU: 5 (-1)
SGP: 2 (0)
PvdD: 1 (-1)
TON: 0 (-1)

It looks like any governing coalition will need to have four parties, which will be interesting. The favoured option at the moment is PvdA / VVD / D66 / GL, but the PvdA and VVD haven’t been getting along that well lately, so we’ll have to see.

21:15 – The initial exit polls have been released. These are usually quite reliable, and the race between the PvdA (Labour) and VVD (Liberals) looks to be very close:

VVD: 31 seats (+9)
PvdA: 31 seats (-2)
CDA: 21 seats (-20)
PVV: 23 seats (+14)
SP: 15 seats (-10)
GL: 11 seats (+4)
D66: 10 seats (+7)
CU: 5 seats (-1)
SGP: 2 seats (0)
PvdD: 1 seat (-1)
TON: 0 seats (-1)

More reliable exit polls, which will be factoring the last hour of vote, will be released within the next ten minutes.

Other initial impressions: Geert Wilders’s PVV has done much better than expected and seems to have taken last-minute votes from the CDA, VVD and PvdA, all of whom have done worse in the exit polls than in the opinion polls of the last few days.

Turnout is at 74%, which is the lowest since 1998.

On a personal note, I’m delighted to see GroenLinks return to its record result of 11 seats; I hope it holds up!