Dutch provincial elections, 2015

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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Provincial elections were held in the Netherlands on Wednesday 18 March 2015.[1] Eligible voters elected the members of the States-Provincial in the twelve provinces. These elections also indirectly determined the members of the Senate, since the 566 members of the twelve States-Provincial will elect the Senate's 75 members in the Senate election on 26 May 2015.[2]

Participating parties

Eight political parties participated in the elections in all of the country's twelve provinces:[3]

Bins for putting in the votes for provinces and water boards

National results

The table below shows the total number of seats in all provinces. On March 23, the official results of the 2015 election were published. The two parties which lost most seats were PvdA and VVD, the parties in the national government at the time of the election.

States-Provincial
Political parties 2011 2015 difference
People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) 112 89 -23
Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) 86 89 +3
Socialist Party (SP) 56 70 +14
Democrats 66 (D66) 42 67 +25
Party for Freedom (PVV) 69 66 -3
Labour Party (PvdA) 107 63 -44
GreenLeft (GL) 34 30 -4
ChristianUnion (CU) 23 29 +6
Party for the Animals (PvdD) 7 18 +11
Reformed Political Party (SGP) 12 18 +6
50Plus 9 14 +5
CU-SGP[4] 1 2 +1
Regionalist parties[5] 8 15 +7
total 566 570 +4
voters 56 % 47 % -9 %

Opinion polls

In the table below the % of voters based on various polls.

Date Polling Firm VVD PvdA CDA PVV SP D66 GL CU 50PLUS SGP PvdD Others Lead
7 Feb 2015 I&O Research[6] 17 12 13 13 14 13 5 4 4 3 3 0 3
1 Feb 2015 Peil[7] 14 9 15 14 12 16 7 4 1 2 3 2 1
2 Mar 2011 Last elections20 17 14 12 10 8 6 3 2 2 2 2 3

References

  1. ↑ "Provinciale staten". Kiesraad (in Dutch). Retrieved 28 July 2014.
  2. ↑ "Eerste Kamer". Kiesraad (in Dutch). Retrieved 28 July 2014.
  3. ↑ "Kandidatenlijsten voor provinciale statenverkiezingen ingeleverd". Kiesraad (in Dutch). 2 February 2015. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  4. ↑ Combinated list in two provinces (North Holland and North Brabant).
  5. ↑ Many linked to the Independent Senate Group (OSF).
  6. ↑ http://www.ioresearch.nl/Portals/0/Provinciale%20Statenverkiezingen_1.pdf Provinciale Statenverkiezingen] (in Dutch). Retrieved 11 February 2015.
  7. ↑ Peil.nl Retrieved 1 February 2015.
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