The five main events
- Based on more than 80 percent of votes tallied, Volt, JA21 and BBB are winning
- Caroline van der Plas’s BBB probably gets more than 19% of the vote
- Coalition of VVD, D66, CDA and ChristenUnie loses votes across the board in provincial elections
- The gain of the BBB is even greater than that of the FVD in 2019
- It does not appear that the “left cloud” of PvdA and GroenLinks together will achieve the gains the parties hoped for.
Provisional seat foreseen for the Senate: BBB 15, GL/PvdA 15, VVD 10
06:15 am | BB remains well ahead with the seats expected for the Senate, which will be elected by the new Provincial Council in May. After counting 85 percent of the votes, Caroline van der Plas’ party finds itself with 15 seats. GroenLinks and the PvdA, which will form a single party in the senate, will also have 15 seats. This is one more place than they have combined now.
As second party, the ruling VVD party ends up with 10 seats in the Senate, 2 fewer than the Liberals now have. In this prognosis D66 has 6 places and the CDA 5, a loss of 1 and 4 places respectively.
PVV and Party for the Animals now each have 4 seats and 3 senate seats are in the offing for SP, JA21 and ChristenUnie. FvD and Volt would end up with 2 Senate seats and 1 seat would go to SGP, 50PLUS and OSF.
The provisional prognosis for the Senate could change again in the next few hours, because interim results from some larger municipalities are yet to come.
The coalition largely loses, especially blows for the CDA and VVD
05:14 | The coalition of VVD, D66, CDA and ChristenUnie is losing votes across the board in provincial elections, according to data from the ANP Election Service. Based on more than 80% of the votes counted, the CDA and the VVD in particular were electorally affected within the coalition.
The Christian Democrats lose 4.5 percentage points, while the liberals of the Vvd should lose 2.9 percentage points. They finish at 6.7 and 11.1 percent, respectively, based on current data.
CDA leader Wopke Hoekstra suffered his defeat as election night began. “This is an extremely bitter pill.” VVD leader Mark Rutte was still rather laconic. He hoped the damage would be limited to “half a percentage point”, but he also acknowledged that the VVD “didn’t get the profit it wanted”.
Coalition partners D66 and ChristenUnie are also at a loss. Sigrid Kaag’s party appears to have lost 1.4 percentage points (from 7.8 to 6.4 percent) and ChristenUnie risks losing 1.1 percentage points (from 4.7 to 3.6). Kaag was still “pretty pleased” with a narrow senate loss. CU leader Mirjam Bikker said he would be “excited” if the party could match its previous achievement.
BBB profit even higher than FVD in 2019
05:03 | Caroline van der Plas’ BoerBurgerBeweging appears to have achieved an even greater electoral gain than Forum for Democracy in 2019. In that year, Thierry Baudet’s party suddenly became the largest party with 14.4% of the vote. But the BBB is going beyond that milestone and heading for a 19.4% profit, based on more than 80% of the counted votes that have been transferred to the PA’s Electoral Service.
Forum managed to secure 86 seats in the states four years ago. The BBB now appears to be winning nearly 100 seats in the United States. In most provinces, the BBB is the largest party.
This means that the “protest vote” now seems to go mostly to the BBB. Even parties like the PVV or the SP, which are very critical of the government, are losing ground. Little remains of the FVD: Nationally, the party still appears to get about 3 percent of the vote, good for about 10 seats in the states.
The BBB particularly profiled on nitrogen. The party strongly opposes the government’s nitrogen policy. The question is whether the government will be able to implement the plans. Provinces play an important role in implementation and in several provinces it seems difficult to imagine an administration without the BBB. In Overijssel, the BBB seems to get 17 of the 41 seats. Far behind VVD, CDA and GroenLinks, who can now count on 4 seats each.
The dreamed ‘left cloud’ profit is not yet imminent
04:59 | It does not appear that the “left cloud” of PvdA and GroenLinks together will achieve the gains the parties hoped for. Based on more than 80% of the votes counted, the combination is losing. The parties together reach 16.8 percent. In 2019 this was still 18.9%.
Cities such as Leeuwarden and Nijmegen have not yet been counted, and the results for, for example, Amsterdam and Rotterdam are not yet complete. But there is little chance that these findings significantly tilt the national picture.
It is not yet possible to say what this expected result means for the role of left-wing parties in the Senate. Now they are already the most numerous there together, and often the coalition looks to them for a majority. It’s not yet clear whether left-wing parties will retain that key role, or if even their seats won’t be enough for a majority in the Senate.
Peel municipalities en masse opt for BBB and dethrone CDA
04:54 | In the Peel boroughs of Deurne, Someren, Laarbeek and Gemert-Bakel, the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB)made huge electoral gains and is now the largest party anywhere. The party became the largest party in Someren with 34% and in Deurne with 31.5%. In Gemert-Bakel, 30% of voters voted for BBB, in Laarbeek 25.6%.
The CDA lost heavily in all four municipalities. Four years ago, the party was still the largest in these municipalities, but the CDA had to cede its leading position to the BBB one by one.
Due to government plans to reduce nitrogen emissions, many farmers in the township of Peel fear for their future. BBB strongly opposes the government’s nitrogen policy.