Voters in the Netherlands on Wednesday punished the governing parties for tough reforms carried out in the past years. The governing coalition parties lost seats in the provincial election that will determine the make-up of the Senate. Instead of a solid win, however, the Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders lost a seat, according to exit polls.
Most opposition parties aside from the PVV gained. Contrary to earlier opinion polls, which predicted that his party would be the winner of the day, Wilders' anti-Islam, anti-EU, and anti-immigration party is projected to lose a seat.
The PVV's loss was not wholly unexpected. Although riding high in the polls up until Election Day, pollsters warned that a low turnout could be Wilders' undoing. That caveat became reality. Turnout this year was well below that of the elections of 2011, causing Wilders' third consecutive electoral loss.
Freedom Party voters are among those who feel most disenfranchised. Getting them to turn once again proved very difficult for Wilders, who lacks a campaign organization as he has chosen not to establish a traditional party system with paying members.
Other parties that could rely on solid membership organizations were able to mobilize thousands of volunteers to get out the vote. The Socialist Party, considered a leftist populist party able to attract the protest vote like Wilders, coupled that ability with a strong campaign machine. While the PVV lost, the socialists are expected to gain a seat in the Senate.
Puzzle
The biggest winner was D66, a centrist, social-liberal party that has in the past years helped the governing parties carry amended legislation through the Senate with the aid of two Christian Democratic parties. Those parties, the Christian Union and the Reformed Party, also gained seats. With these three parties in a supporting role, the coalition parties until now had a slight majority of 38 seats in the Senate. The Senate counts 75 seats, so parties need 38 for a majority to successfully pass legislation.
That majority is gone thanks mainly to the big losses incurred by the two mainstream parties: the center-left Social Democrats, or PvdA, and to a lesser extent the the center-right Liberals, or VVD. Their losses and their minor partners' gains leave the whole lot with 36 seats, forcing them to look for a sixth supporting partner to complete the majority puzzle. In theory the Greens could bring their three seats to the coalition's aid.
Thanks to a campaign strongly focused on regional and local issues, the Christian Democrats, or CDA, bounced back from significant losses in 2011, which saw many voters cross over to the VVD. The CDA is projected to win 12 seats in the Senate. Its leader on election night warned that the CDA's votes in the Senate would come at a high price for the coalition.
Carry on
Despite the losses and increased difficulty to gather enough seats at the Senate table, the VVD and PvdA vowed to continue governing. Both parties had announced before Election Day that they would stay on as they still have a solid majority in Parliament, whatever their losses in the Senate.
On May 26, an electoral college of representatives of the newly elected provincial parliaments will elect a new Senate. This is usually done along party lines, but some independent regional parties have in the past voted in favor of one of the parties currently in Parliament. This may mean a small shift in seats compared to calculated projections.
