While Dutch municipal elections had a historically low turnout, Dutch women saw a pretty big win. 🎉
In the newly elected municipal councils, more than 36% of members are women. Before the elections this year, 31% of all council members were female, says NU.nl. 💪🏼
Majority of women in more municipalities
In 2018, 70 women with preferential votes were elected in the largest Dutch municipalities. Before this year’s elections, women only had a majority of council seats in seven municipalities.
Now, 180 women with preferential votes joined municipal councils and they hold the majority in 24 municipalities.
These include some bigger cities like Delft, Utrecht, Wageningen, Nijmegen, Leeuwarden, and Zwolle.
In the 70 largest municipalities in the Netherlands, women currently make up an average of 41% of all councillors. More and more voters are also consciously voting for women, reports Devika Partiman, chairman of the Stem op een Vrouw (Vote for a Woman) Foundation.
Across political parties
The support for women goes beyond specific political parties. Most parties actually had a high number of votes for women including the People’s Party of Freedom and Democracy (VVD), Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), Democrats 66 (D66), GreenLeft (GroenLinks), and the Labour Party (PvdA).
Now, there is not a single municipality that doesn’t have a woman sitting on the municipal council.
Want the latest Dutch news to come zooming through the internet to your inbox? Dat kan! Subscribe to DutchReview’s weekly roundup 📮
