🇳🇱 Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: General Election (Nov 22)

[Logical]

Turnout in selected major municipalities so far (16 15)

Amsterdam : 42.2%
https://www.opkomstenuitslag.nl/amsterdam/
Rotterdam : 37.4%
https://www.opkomstenuitslag.nl/rotterdam/
The Hague : 41.2%
https://www.opkomstenuitslag.nl/denhaag/
Utrecht : 48.2%
https://www.opkomstenuitslag.nl/utrecht/
Eindhoven : 42.3%
https://www.opkomstenuitslag.nl/eindhoven/
Groningen : 46.4%
https://www.opkomstenuitslag.nl/groningen/
Nijmegen : 47.5%
https://www.opkomstenuitslag.nl/nijmegen/

[tomhguy]

Random prediction because may as well totally embarass myself:

PVV 32
GL-PvdA 27
VVD 25
NSC 17
D66 10
SP 6
BBB 5
PvdD 4
DENK 4
CDA 4
Volt 4
FVD 3
CU 3
SGP 3
BVNL 1
JA21 1
BIJ1 1
50Plus 0

Now expecting some kind of shift towards the right in terms of government formation, especially if the PVV surge is true as the polls and tea leaves suggest....

[jeron]

Turnout was 40% at 15:45. In 2017, it was 43% at the time (with 81.6% total turnout).

We seem to be getting closer to 2017 turmout. It is not evenly divided over the country though. In soms towns turnout is up compared to 2017 or it is about even. Low turnout in Rotterdam. 37% at 16:15, soms cities getting close to 50% already

[DavidB.]

words

Cool opinion man. I have a different one. And I would prefer to keep this thread not about opinions in the first place. Trying to leave mine out too btw, was just answering someone's question. I usually only mention mine when readers should know about my potential biases (such as regarding my prediction).

While I'm not sure we agree on much (if anything), just wanted to say how great this thread has been! It made a complicated mess of an election easy to follow and understand even to uninformed foreigners. Hope today's outcome changes the country for the better!

Many thanks for these kind words - and fully agreed on the latter point.

[DL]

Boy it sure looks like BBB has turned out to be just a flash in the pan. If they end up with just a paltry 4 or 5 seats, do they even survive as a party?

[jeron]

Boy it sure looks like BBB has turned out to be just a flash in the pan. If they end up with just a paltry 4 or 5 seats, do they even survive as a party?

Of course. They have 16 seats in the senate and they are in many provincial governments. Any future government will have to negotiate with them

[RGM2609]

Boy it sure looks like BBB has turned out to be just a flash in the pan. If they end up with just a paltry 4 or 5 seats, do they even survive as a party?

If anything, I'd say that being a small party increases its chances of surviving in the longer term. It may still implode, but I have an even harder time imagining them holding it together if they won 30 seats.

[Angel of Death]

It wouldn't surprise me if the old CDA ends up being effectively reconstituted in the medium future by a fusion with NSC and/or BBB.

[DavidB.]

It wouldn't surprise me if the old CDA ends up being effectively reconstituted in the medium future by a fusion with NSC and/or BBB.

The CDA label only comes with negative baggage these days, except for a pool of voters over 70 years who vote for them 'out of habit'. The other thing that makes this impossible is the fact that the people left in the CDA are still convinced everything is Omtzigt's fault, De Jonge was a great leader, Omtzigt is a 'backstabber' etc. In last night's final debate, new CDA leader Henri Bontenbal got clearly emotional and quite vicious when debating Omtzigt and it was an ugly look. The ones left on the sinking CDA ship will all go down together. A fusion with Omtzigt seems impossible. BBB don't have much to gain with it either.

[Vosem]

The party that I have actually supported on Election Day during my time following Dutch politics -- the high number of parties makes this a strange exercise, since it tracks not just my political evolution, or the evolution of Dutch politics, but the evolution of my willingness or lack thereof to support very small parties:
2010: PVV
2012: VVD
2017: Pirates
2021: JA21
2023: PVV

A weird "full circle"; I am not that enamored by the PVV necessarily (my full expectation is that they will make government formation impossible and in the next election my hypothetical-vote will be for VVD, or for a minor-right party which isn't quite so large), but they simply have the correct enemies at the current moment, including on the far-right itself.

More so than the huge numbers of parties and the low threshold, the thing that strikes me as making Dutch politics very weird is the existence of, and demand for, a huge "go along to get along" party. CDA is dying but it on some level remains the natural largest party and center of government, and the NSC leading the polls in this campaign shows that there is some demand among under-70 voters for a party with CDA's niche. Even if Omtzigt collapsed at the end, it seems to have been more because of his own weird inconsistencies rather than because of problems with the NSC as a concept.

[Angel of Death]

Maybe it is too much of a (pointless) Ship of Theseus discussion whether, if a party with a different name takes over the same demographic of another, it is really a different party.

[Red Wall]

Boy it sure looks like BBB has turned out to be just a flash in the pan. If they end up with just a paltry 4 or 5 seats, do they even survive as a party?

Of course. They have 16 seats in the senate and they are in many provincial governments. Any future government will have to negotiate with them

What if they just quit like the FvD members following the party collapse?

[DavidB.]

What if they just quit like the FvD members following the party collapse?

I do think there's a chance some of the 16 BBB Senators jump ship to Omtzigt in the event he needs Senators to make a coalition work. But on the other hand, BBB having 16 Senators strengthens Omtzigt's negotiating hand vis-a-vis Timmermans policy-wise.

[Continential]

Could a merger happen between BBB and Omtzigt or are there too many differences for a merger to be plausible?

[DavidB.]

Could a merger happen between BBB and Omtzigt or are there too many differences for a merger to be plausible?

Would have been more logical before Omtzigt started his party. Never say never, particularly in Dutch politics, but it seems unlikely. Particularly on agriculture and nitrogens, BBB's core issue, the differences are relevant.

[DavidB.]

With slightly more than two hours to go, Emmen is already approaching its 2021 total turnout figure: 67% now, 75.4% then. Last time, the PVV came first with 18.5% in Emmen while they only got 10.8% nationally. Are these additional voters PVV voters? Not sure. But if I had to guess whether the PVV is over or below 30% there now, I might guess 'over' at this point.

[tomhguy]

Hmmmm I guess these turnouts figures based on that could be good for the PVV then? Obviously just one sign, but may confirm the PVV surge

[DavidB.]

Could be, yes. But there could be similar effects for GL-PvdA in the 'progressive belt'. Turnout looks up across the board to me. There has been a significant uptick since 18:00 in all municipalities on opkomstenuitslag.nl. That's usual, of course, since many people always vote after work, but in many municipalities turnout is already approaching the 2021 total with 1.5 hour left. I think it's going to be about 80% again, as was expected by I&O. It makes sense that people vote later in the day compared to last time, because fewer people work from home.

[Double Carpet]

Does anyone have any livestreams for the election results coverage that aren't geoblocked?

A live results map site would be amazing too.

Many thanks to everyone for all the updates, especially David.

Thanks,

DC

[🇺🇦 Purple 🦄 Unicorn 🇮🇱]

Awesome reporting by DavidB. - too bad I hardly understand Dutch politics, but PVV should do well today.

[🇺🇦 Purple 🦄 Unicorn 🇮🇱]

Why are PVV + FvD not merged?

[jeron]

Turnout is relatively high in the north, or at least in the provinces of Drenthe and Groningen, but that is also true of the city of Groningen which is not particularly PVV-friendly.
In the east turnout is not high at all. Enschede (Omtzigt's hometown) was at 45% at 17:30, Hengelo was at 42% at 17:00 (3% lower than in 2021) and Arnhem has low turnout as well.
Some figures point to PVV doing well, but turnout in Rotterdam is low (which is the most favorable for PVV among the largest cities) and it will be lower than 2021. Turnout in Almere was an abysmal 38% at 17:00.  PVV is the second largest party in its city council and was the largest between 2010 and 2018.

So, lots of it is still unclear

[Oryxslayer]

Does anyone have any livestreams for the election results coverage that aren't geoblocked?

A live results map site would be amazing too.

Many thanks to everyone for all the updates, especially David.

Thanks,

DC

I have used https://nos.nl/ for the past two Dutch Elections (I recall checking live updates on my phone between shifts while working as a temp swim instructor in 2017). They should also have a livestream on their youtube page when the time comes. Here's their description of the counting process.

Let me see if their map is up yet.

[jeron]

Does anyone have any livestreams for the election results coverage that aren't geoblocked?

A live results map site would be amazing too.

Many thanks to everyone for all the updates, especially David.

Thanks,

DC

I have used https://nos.nl/ for the past two Dutch Elections (I recall checking live updates on my phone between shifts while working as a temp swim instructor in 2017). They should also have a livestream on their youtube page when the time comes. Here's their description of the counting process.

Let me see if their map is up yet.

There is no map yet but there will be once the results start coming in.

[DavidB.]

At 20:30 the NOS will start its election coverage which should last until after midnight. I will post the livestream here when available. In addition, GeenStijl will have a show with pollster Maurice de Hond as they usually do. Their show is a bit amateuristic in terms of layout and tends to have kind of a 'frat house' atmosphere, but they have a lot more hard data early on, zooming in on polling stations and comparing them to earlier elections in a more detailed way than NOS do. Perfect for psephology nerds like us (but obviously in Dutch).