Dutch municipal elections, 2006

The Dutch municipal elections of 2006 were held on March 7, 2006. About 11.8 million people could vote in 419 municipalities. Due to local redistricting, 15 municipalities have already held elections in January 2006 and 24 municipalities will hold elections in November 2006. In some cities, such as Amsterdam, there were two elections, for the municipality and for the 'stadsdeelraden' (borough councils).

Official results were announced on March 9, 2006 (official site). PvdA (Labour Party) obtained the most votes and seats, more than making good the losses of the 2002 elections. The Socialistische Partij almost doubled in size, partly due to its participation in more municipalities than in 2002. CDA, VVD and D66 all had noticeable losses, which may in part be caused by dissatisfaction with the current national government, of which they are the coalition partners. Overall, local parties of the Leefbaar type lost out as well after some success during the previous elections.

The following results are as yet incomplete because 24 of the 443 municipalities will have the elections in November (due to redistricting). In the 419 municipalities of the March elections the 8861 seats were filled as follows

It should be noted that, although the above shows the total results for the whole of the Netherlands, this has no official effect on national politics. It is often seen as an indication for it, but the issues and the parties that participate at the two levels don't always coincide. For example, SP got almost twice as many seats because they participated in almost twice as many municipalities as it did in 2002, which will in part explain their success, but even so, they still didn't participate in all municipalities, so not everyone could vote for them. However, since this comparison is often made, a larger scale poll was held, showing that the government parties would have lost 17 seats in parliament if national elections would have been held on that day (with CDA losing 13 seats) and the left wing parties would have each won seats; PvdA +7, SP +8 and GreenLeft +2. This is fairly similar to the election results and a confirmation of polls showing a possible majority (and thus coalition) for the three left-wing parties, which would be a first in the Netherlands and may be a reaction to what they call the present 'right-wing winter'.

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