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Dutch Christian parties lose in local elections

17-03-2022

Western Europe

CNE.news

Polling station in a church. Photo ANP, Koen van Weel

In total, the Christian parties lost seats in the local elections during the last three days. However, the conservative Reformed SGP party gained votes compared to four years ago.

The other two Dutch Christian parties, ChristenUnie (Christian Union) and CDA (Christian Democratic Appeal), lost votes compared to the municipal election of 2018. On the national level, both parties are part of the Rutte government.

The Dutch have three Christian political parties. The SGP is a conservative Protestant party, which tries to make policy based on Reformed ethics. The ChristenUnie is more Evangelical oriented, while the CDA is a broad people's party, which is formed more around cultural Christianity and cooperation between Protestants and Roman Catholics.

The Christian Democratic CDA lost seats. Whereas the party received about 13 per cent of all votes during the municipal election in 2018, it now must be satisfied with an estimated 11 per cent. Still, the party finished as the biggest in the country on local level. “Unfortunately, it looks like we lost seats”, national party leader Wopke Hoekstra responded to the first exit polls. “However, at the same time, it looks better than most other recent polls.” One of the reasons that the election results are not as bad as the CDA expected, is probably the fact that the turnout in this election was low. Former party leader Hugo de Jonge says that the party profits from that, because it has a loyal constituency.

Loss of 10 per cent

The ChristenUnie must take a loss of seats as well. Thursday morning, the party had lost 35 from the 337 seats that it won in 2018. That comes down to almost 10 per cent. For example, in Assen, Elburg and Urk it is no longer the largest party of the municipality, while this was the case with the elections of 2018. It also seems to lose its only seat in the municipality of Amsterdam, even though the definitive result remained uncertain on Thursday morning.

SGP grows in several places

This week, the number of SGP seats in the municipal governments increased from 170 to 198 in total. In the Dutch town of Veere, it even grew from zero seats to four seats, which makes it the largest party in the municipality. In the Dutch fishery town of Urk, the SGP doubled its number of seats from three to six, while the local ChristenUnie lost seats. Leader of the federal SGP, Kees van der Staaij, tweeted that he found it “gladdening that the SGP grows in several places.” The SGP did not win seats everywhere, however. In a few places, the party also lost a few seats. In some municipalities, the SGP has an electoral alliance with the ChristenUnie.

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