Dutch Senate election, 2011

Azure, billetty Or a lion with a coronet Or armed and langued Gules holding in his dexter paw a sword Argent hilted Or and in the sinister paw seven arrows Argent pointed and bound together Or. [The seven arrows stand for the seven provinces of the Union of Utrecht.] The shield is crowned with the (Dutch) royal crown and supported by two lions Or armed and langued gules. They stand on a scroll Azure with the text (Or) "Je Maintiendrai" (French for "I will maintain".)
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The elections of the Dutch Senate of 2011 were held on 23 May 2011, following the provincial elections on 2 March 2011.[1] The 566 members of the twelve States-Provincial elected the 75 Senate members. The new Senate has been installed on 7 June 2011.

Participating parties

List number Party Top candidate
1 Christian Democratic Appeal Elco Brinkman
2 Labour Party Marleen Barth
3 People's Party for Freedom and Democracy Loek Hermans
4 GreenLeft Tof Thissen
5 Socialist Party Tiny Kox
6 Democrats 66 Roger van Boxtel
7 ChristianUnion Roel Kuiper
8 Reformed Political Party Gerrit Holdijk
9 Independent Senate Group Kees de Lange
10 Party for the Animals Niko Koffeman
11 Party for Freedom Machiel de Graaf
12 50PLUS Jan Nagel
13 Koornstra List Ruud Koornstra

Vote weights

The provinces have different population sizes, so the members of the States-Provincial cast weighted votes, to ensure that each vote represents the same number of people. The weight is determined by dividing the population of the province by the number of seats in the States of that province. This number is divided by 100 and rounded.

Province Seats Population Vote weight[2]
South Holland 55 3,527,449 641
North Holland 55 2,691,426 489
North Brabant 55 2,453,936 446
Gelderland 55 2,005,298 365
Utrecht 47 1,228,579 261
Overijssel 47 1,134,434 241
Limburg 47 1,122,631 239
Friesland 43 647,280 151
Groningen 43 579,034 135
Drenthe 41 491,342 120
Flevoland 39 391,988 101
Zeeland 39 381,582 98

Result

Result of the Dutch Eerste Kamer election, 2011
Party 2007 2011[3] difference
People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) 14 16 +2
Labour Party (PvdA) 14 14 0
Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) 21 11 −10
Party for Freedom (PVV) 0 10 +10
Socialist Party (SP) 12 8 * −4
Democrats 66 (D66) 2 5 * +3
GreenLeft (GL) 4 5 +1
ChristianUnion (CU) 4 2 −2
Reformed Political Party (SGP) 2 1 −1
50PLUS (50+) 0 1 +1
Party for the Animals (PvdD) 1 1 0
Independent Senate Group (OSF) 1 1 0
Total 75 75 0

The coalition parties VVD and CDA and their supporting party, the PVV, won 37 seats in this election, one short of an overall majority. However, the coalition-friendly SGP won the last needed seat, and it is expected that the SGP will help the cabinet in obtaining a majority on most issues.[4]

- * Democrats 66 missed a seat and the Socialist Party gained one due to a mistake of North Holland States-Provincial member Wim Cool, who voted with a blue writing device instead of the prescribed red one.[5]

References