1. Home
    2.  
  2. In brief
  3. Political parties and trade-unions

In brief

Provincial parties make gains in Dutch elections

Frisian parties win 10% of the vote

 
FNP members welcome their party's election result.
FNP members welcome their party's election result. Author: FNP
Provincial parties have won 17 seats out of 572 in the parliamentary elections in the 12 provinces of the Netherlands of 15 March. Four years ago, they won 15. The elections were marked by the victory of the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), a conservative agrarian party founded at the end of 2019.

As usual, Friesland was the province with the highest non-state party vote. The Frisian National Party (Fryske Nasjonale Partij, FNP, 8% of the vote) retained its four seats out of 43 in the Frisian parliament and became the fourth largest party in the council. The novelty is the entry of a second provincial party, Provincial Interest Friesland (Provinciaal Belang Fryslân, 2% of the vote), with one seat. The results “show that the people of Friesland want a strong regional voice,” the FNP said in a statement.

In neighbouring Groningen, on the other hand, provincial parties lost ground. Groningen Interest (Groningen Belang, GB) dropped one percentage point and was left with 6% of the vote, although it kept its three seats. The Party for the North (Partij voor het Noorden, PvhN) has also lost one point and is down to 3% of the vote. In this case, it lost one of its two seats.

In the rest of the country, Local Brabant (Lokaal Brabant, LB), a coalition of municipal parties, rose from one to two seats and reached 4% of the vote for the first time.

The other provincial seats were won by Local Limburg (Lokaal Limburg, L-L, 2 seats), the Party for Zeeland (Partij voor Zeeland, PvZ, 2 seats), Strong and Local Drenthe (Sterk Lokaal Drenthe, SLD, 1 seat) and Strong and Local Flevoland (Sterk Lokaal Flevoland, 1 seat).