The Election Results in the 4 Big Dutch Cities: what happened?

Municipal election results of 2018 in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht:

Oh boy, are you all still a bit hung over from that democratic party? So now all is said and done, let’s have a good look today to see who your new municipal overlords are. We’ll start with the four big Dutch cities. Here are the municipal election results of 2018 from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.

Municipal election results in Amsterdam 2018:

The good folk at the NOS have developed a nifty app with all the results nicely displayed, here’s Amsterdam:

There are two trends to be dissected here. The first and the main trend for a lot of Dutch cities. D66 is losing a bit and the GreenLeft is winning a bit, and nowhere is this easier to see in Amsterdam. The GreenLeft is now the biggest party and D66 came in second, you shouldn’t expect any big changes to come from that – both parties fit nicely into a coalition (yes, we have those coalitions in municipality councils as well).

The second trend? 3 seats for the long-arm-of-Erdogan party: DENK – sadly this immigrant counterpart to the PVV wins in a lot of cities where they participated.
There are also 3 seats for the rightwing Thierry Baudet cult of the Forum for Democracy.

Nothing shocking in Amsterdam, you can see that green liberal coalition coming from a mile-away. What happened in Rotterdam?

Municipal election results in Rotterdam 2018:

Rotterdam was heavily contested this year but in the end the results are pretty straightforward. The rightwing oriented local party of Leefbaar Rotterdam won fair and square and got 11 seats – a bit less than last time, but still a signal that they’re the most popular party in town. Everybody else comes in at 5 seats.

Well, not everybody else of course, again a big win for DENK – really worrying this trend. And there are also 2 seats for the PVV, they couldn’t and didn’t really put up a fight in the end in the port city. But still, it shows that Rotterdam is somewhat divided over identity and immigration issues.

The coalition will probably be Leefbaar Rotterdam with something like the VVD and D66 throw into it, not much will change in Rotterdam.

Municipal election results in Utrecht 2018:

Nothing shocking from Utrecht as well. D66 loses a bit and the GreenLeft wins a bit, just like in Amsterdam. You should know that the image you now get is in no way representable for the rest of the Netherlands, cities like Amsterdam, Utrecht, Leiden, Delft and Haarlem are all big Left-liberal bubbles. The rest of the country sees the CDA, local parties and the VVD being the big dogs.

Municipal election results in The Hague for 2018:

That weird abbreviation up there is a newish party: ‘Groep de Mos’ with foreman Richard de Mos.

This guy:

Richard de Mos quit the PVV years ago because found it too racist, he’s pretty well-liked in The Hague because he is such a loveable ‘Hagenees’ and now he and his party takes the pie in The Hague and swoop in for 9 seats. Pretty crazy!

I guess you can compare them a bit to Leefbaar Rotterdam. ‘Right’ on security and immigration, but a bit leftish on social issues like welfare and care.

So that’s it for now, we’ll be sure to return to you with more election aftermath awesomeness later today.