The Independent Politics Netherlands ( nl, Onafhankelijke Politiek Nederland, OPNL) formerly known as the Independent Senate Group (Onafhankelijke Senaatsfractie) is a political party in the Dutch Senate with one

senator 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 ...

, representing several

provincial Provincial may refer to: Government & Administration * Provincial capitals, an administrative sub-national capital of a country * Provincial city (disambiguation) * Provincial minister (disambiguation) * Provincial Secretary, a position in Can ...

parties. OPNL differs from other Dutch political parties in that it does not allow for individual membership, but only grants membership to provincial parties, or municipal local parties that are members of a provincial party. The OPNL only contests the elections for the Eerste Kamer and represents regionalist interests.

History

In 1995, several provincial parties and The Greens proposed their own independent list for the Senate elections, called the Platform of Independent Groups/Greens (''Platform van Onafhankelijke Groepen/De Groenen).'' Marten Bierman (a member of The Greens) was elected through

preferential vote {{short description, Election systems Preferential voting or preference voting (PV) may refer to different election systems or groups of election systems: * Ranked voting methods, all election methods that involve ranking candidates in order of pre ...

. In 1999 Bierman was reelected. In 2003, Henk ten Hoeve became senator for the OSF. He was a member of the Friesland

states-provincial The provincial council (, PS), also known as the States Provincial, is the provincial parliament and legislative assembly in each of the provinces of the Netherlands. It is elected for each province simultaneously once every four years and has ...

representing the Frisian National Party. He remained senator until 2011. Ten Hoeve was succeeded by Kees de Lange. De Lange was elected on the OSF list, but was a member of the

50PLUS 50PLUS (; abbreviated 50+) is a political party in the Netherlands that advocates pensioners' interests. The party was founded in 2009 by Maurice Koopman, Alexander Münninghoff, and Jan Nagel. Henk Krol served as the party's leader from 2016 to ...

party, with which the OSF had a vote sharing agreement, as the OSF did not achieve enough votes to get a seat independently. In 2015 De Lange broke with the OSF due to a disagreement concerning the possible cooperation between the OSF and the

People's Party of Limburg People's, branded as ''People's Viennaline'' until May 2018, and legally ''Altenrhein Luftfahrt GmbH'', is an Austrian airline headquartered in Vienna. It operates scheduled and charter passenger flights mainly from its base at St. Gallen-Altenr ...

Jos van Rey Jozef Franciscus Bernard "Jos" van Rey (; born 15 April 1945) is a Dutch businessman and politician from Roermond. He has been a member of the municipal council of Roermond for the Liberal People's Party Roermond since 2014 and a member of the S ...

, a former VVD alderman and representative plagued by corruption scandals. In 2015, Henk ten Hoeve became senator of the OSF for a second time. Between 2019 and 2021 Gerben Gerbrandy, former mayor of

Achtkarspelen Achtkarspelen () is a municipality in Friesland in the northern Netherlands. History The name ''Achtkarspelen'', literally meaning "eight parishes", is derived from the original eight parishes within the ''grietenij'', namely: Augustinusga, Buite ...

, has been the senator representing the OSF. Gerbrandy left the Senate in January 2021 and was replaced by Ton Raven, a former alderman from Sittard-Geleen.

Name change

In 2021, the party's name was changed to ''Independent Politics Netherlands''.

Members

OPNL consists of the following provincial parties:

Eerste Kamer Election results

References

External links

Official website
{{Dutch Political Parties Regionalist parties in the Netherlands Political parties established in 1999 1999 establishments in the Netherlands