An election to the
Dutch Senate
The Senate ( or simply ' , literally "First Chamber of the States General", or sometimes ' ) is the upper house of the States General, the legislature of the Netherlands. Its 75 members are elected on lists by the members of the twelve States-P ...
was held on 30 May 2023. The 75 members of the Senate were elected by members of the provincial councils and electoral colleges elected two months earlier in
provincial and
electoral college elections.
The four coalition parties saw their combined seat count decrease from 32 to 24. The
Farmer–Citizen Movement
The Farmer–Citizen Movement (, BBB) is an agrarian political party in the Netherlands. It is headquartered in Deventer, Overijssel. The current party leader is Caroline van der Plas, who founded it in 2019. Unlike most of its agrarian counter ...
(BBB), which had come first in the provincial elections, entered the Senate with 16 seats. The
Labour Party and
GroenLinks
GroenLinks (, ) is a green political party in the Netherlands.
It was formed on 1 March 1989 from the merger of four left-wing parties: the Communist Party of the Netherlands, the Pacifist Socialist Party, the Political Party of Radicals and t ...
, which intend to form a joint parliamentary group, won a combined 14 seats.
Background
Since 2017, the Netherlands has had coalition governments consisting of the
People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy ( nl, Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie ; VVD) is a conservative-liberal Andeweg, R. and G. Irwin ''Politics and Governance in the Netherlands'', Basingstoke (Palgrave) p.49 political party in ...
(VVD),
Democrats 66
Democrats 66 (; abbreviated D66, ) is a Social liberalism, social liberal List of political parties in the Netherlands, political party in the Netherlands, which positions itself in the Centrism, centre of the Left–right political spectrum, p ...
(D66), the
Christian Democratic Appeal
The Christian Democratic Appeal ( nl, Christen-Democratisch Appèl, ; CDA) is a Christian-democratic political party in the Netherlands. It was originally formed in 1977 from a confederation of the Catholic People's Party, the Anti-Revolutionary ...
(CDA) and the
Christian Union (CU). After the
2019 Senate election, this coalition
lost its majority in the Senate, holding 32 seats. Being 6 seats short of a majority made it necessary for the government to seek cooperation with opposition parties such as the
Labour Party (PvdA),
GroenLinks
GroenLinks (, ) is a green political party in the Netherlands.
It was formed on 1 March 1989 from the merger of four left-wing parties: the Communist Party of the Netherlands, the Pacifist Socialist Party, the Political Party of Radicals and t ...
and
JA21
JA21 (, backronym for Juiste Antwoord 2021, or 'Right Answer 2021') is a political party in the Netherlands, currently active in the Senate as the Nanninga Group (). It was founded in December 2020 by Joost Eerdmans and Annabel Nanninga after ...
in order to get legislation through the Senate. The coalition parties were long expected to lose more seats in the 2023 Senate election, which would make it more difficult for the government to find majorities for important legislation.
In June 2022, members of the PvdA and GroenLinks voted in favour of the formation of a joint Senate group after the 2023 election. This makes the election an important step for the
PvdA–GroenLinks alliance.
Since 2019, the government has had the intention to limit the
human impact on the nitrogen cycle
Human impact on the nitrogen cycle is diverse. Agricultural and industrial nitrogen (N) inputs to the environment currently exceed inputs from natural N fixation. As a consequence of anthropogenic inputs, the global nitrogen cycle (Fig. 1) has b ...
. Its nitrogen bill has met resistance from several opposition parties including the
Farmer–Citizen Movement
The Farmer–Citizen Movement (, BBB) is an agrarian political party in the Netherlands. It is headquartered in Deventer, Overijssel. The current party leader is Caroline van der Plas, who founded it in 2019. Unlike most of its agrarian counter ...
(BBB), which was founded in 2019 and entered the
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
with one seat in 2021. With BBB expected to become a significant force in the Senate after the 2023 election, the government was expected to look to the left for support. However, in early March 2023, PvdA and GroenLinks, as well as other left-wing parties, also announced their intention to vote against the nitrogen bill in the Senate. The government is also expected to face difficulty finding majorities for its climate legislation and its bill for the distribution of asylum seekers.
The government is therefore expected to have to make concessions to opposition parties on these pieces of legislation. However, voters of coalition parties are divided over the question whether the government should turn "left" or "right" in search of support for its legislation. A March 2023 poll shows that a majority of D66 voters wants the government to cooperate with PvdA–GroenLinks, while a majority of VVD and CDA voters would prefer for the government to cooperate with BBB.
Electoral system
The Senate consists of 75 members elected every four years by the members of the
provincial councils
A province is a geographic region within Gaelic games, consisting of several County (Gaelic games), counties of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and originally based on the historic four provinces of Ireland as they were set in 1610.
Provin ...
of the country's twelve provinces, and, following law changes in 2017 and 2022,
electoral colleges representing the
special municipalities of
Bonaire
Bonaire (; , ; pap, Boneiru, , almost pronounced ) is a Dutch island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Its capital is the port of Kralendijk, on the west ( leeward) coast of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC i ...
,
Sint Eustatius
Sint Eustatius (, ), also known locally as Statia (), is an island in the Caribbean. It is a special municipality (officially " public body") of the Netherlands.
The island lies in the northern Leeward Islands portion of the West Indies, so ...
and
Saba Saba may refer to:
Places
* Saba (island), an island of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean Sea
* Şaba (Romanian for Shabo), a town of the Odesa Oblast, Ukraine
* Sabá, a municipality in the department of Colón, Honduras
* Saba (river), ...
and Dutch nationals living abroad, who are in turn elected directly by the citizens two months earlier in the
2023 provincial and
electoral college elections.
The weight of each elector's vote is determined by the population of the province or special municipality which the elector represents, at a ratio of approximately 1 vote per 100 residents. The seats are distributed in one nationwide constituency using
party-list proportional representation
Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a subset of proportional representation electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through their position on an electoral list. They can also be us ...
.
Electors
Participating parties
The following parties were due to participate in the 2023 Senate election:
Seat projections
The table and graphs below show seat projections for the Senate election. Projections before the provincial and electoral college elections on 15 March are based on
opinion polling for the provincial elections. The 15 March projection is based on
exit polls of the provincial elections, while the 19 March projection by
ANP is based on preliminary results of the provincial and electoral college elections.
All coalition parties (VVD, D66, CDA and CU) are expected to lose seats. The
Farmer–Citizen Movement
The Farmer–Citizen Movement (, BBB) is an agrarian political party in the Netherlands. It is headquartered in Deventer, Overijssel. The current party leader is Caroline van der Plas, who founded it in 2019. Unlike most of its agrarian counter ...
(BBB) is projected to become the largest party in the Senate with 17 seats. The
alliance of PvdA and GroenLinks is expected to gain one seat, while
Forum for Democracy
Forum for Democracy ( nl, Forum voor Democratie, FvD) is a right-wing populist Eurosceptic political party in the Netherlands that was founded as a think tank by Thierry Baudet and Henk Otten in 2016. The party first participated in elections i ...
is projected to drop from 12 down to 2 seats.
Projections in November 2022 predicted a drop to just 23 seats for the coalition, then rose to a peak of 28 in late February 2023, followed by a drop down to 22 after the provincial elections; 16 seats short of a majority in the Senate (38 seats needed). A majority could be reached with support from BBB. The projected 15 seats of the PvdA–GroenLinks alliance will be insufficient to reach a majority, and the support of at least one other opposition party would be required.
Results
As projected, the
Farmer–Citizen Movement
The Farmer–Citizen Movement (, BBB) is an agrarian political party in the Netherlands. It is headquartered in Deventer, Overijssel. The current party leader is Caroline van der Plas, who founded it in 2019. Unlike most of its agrarian counter ...
became the largest party, winning 16 seats (as opposed to the projected 17).
Strategic voting
Strategic voting, also called tactical voting, sophisticated voting or insincere voting, occurs in voting systems when a voter votes for another candidate or party than their ''sincere preference'' to prevent an undesirable outcome. For example, ...
of D66 and VVD electors resulted in extra seats for their coalition partners CDA and CU. Moreover, compared to the projections, GroenLinks lost one seat to Volt as GroenLinks elector Debora Fernald voted for Volt.
With the coalition parties winning 24 seats in the Senate, an additional 14 opposition votes are necessary for a 38 vote majority. Support from either BBB (16) or PvdA–GroenLinks (14) suffices.
Notes
References
{{Dutch Senate elections
Senate elections in the Netherlands
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...