The party led by Alexander Pechtold MP almost quadrupled its result, from 142 seats in 2006 to 525 seats in 2010 (results 16h00, 4 March 2010), or 8.1% of the votes. D66 became the number one party in student cities such as Leiden, Delft and Wageningen. Pechtold: “D66 is back. We won last year in the European elections, today in the local elections and we hope to score in the national elections on 9 June that will revolve around two issues, how to stop the polarization in the Netherlands and the need to reduce our state debt.”

The Dutch liberal VVD led by Mark Rutte MP also showed strong results, confirming the upward trend in recent polls and becoming the second biggest party across the country with 15.4% of the votes, overtaking the Christian Democrat CDA in number of votes and the Social Democrat PvdA in number of seats. The VVD obtained 1385 council seats, an increase of 205 compared to the local elections in 2006. VVD Party Leader Mark Rutte: “This is a wonderful result for our party. We are going up across the country.”

ELDR President Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck welcomes the results of the two Dutch member parties and congratulates Pechtold and Rutte: “these results provide a good start for both parties’ national election campaign. Liberals will play a responsible role in Dutch politics, breaking the polarization and providing a moderate alternative to the populism from the right, against xenophobia and discrimination of minorities and promoting sensible reforms opposed to social democrat and Christian democrat grid-lock.”

Other winners were the green party Groen-Links and the Geert Wilders party PVV. However, the PVV only participated in the elections of two city councils, The Hague and Almere. The big losers were the PvdA (-666 seats) and the CDA (-190 seats). Both parties were coalition partners until two weeks ago, when the PvdA decided to leave the government over the question of a continued presence of Dutch troops in Afghanistan. The collapse of the Dutch government has triggered early elections which are scheduled for 9 June 2010. Therefore, while local, these elections were considered as a test case for upcoming parliamentary elections.
More information: www.vvd.nl and www.d66.nl