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dutch Voters are confused about their options in Wednesday’s general election.
The country’s election commission has registered at least 27 parties and 1,166 candidates who are competing for the 150 seats. Lok Sabha,
This means a larger ballot paper because it contains the names of all parties and the candidates on each party’s list. Results Voters crumple up larger ballot papers and use a small red pencil to mark their choice before folding and squeezing the paper through a slot in the ballot box. When polling stations are closed, vote counters across the country have to reopen the sheets to tally the results.
The cumbersome sheets have become such an issue that five municipalities are experimenting with streamlined smaller ballots this year. They include a list of parties and numbers, while the names of the candidates and their numbers are on a separate poster in the polling stations.
The size of the ballot is a powerful symbol of the fragmentation of Dutch politics in an era of increasingly deep divisions in society, but it is not a new phenomenon.
There have long been many parties in Dutch politics but in the past a few big names took the lion’s share of the votes, making it easier to form coalitions. For example, in 1986, 27 parties were on the ballot and nine won at least one seat, but three parties – Christian DemocratLabor Party and centre-right People’s party for freedom and Democracy – dominated with 54, 52 and 27 seats respectively.
According to polls, this year’s vote looks close to the far-right Party for Freedom, led by an anti-Islam MP geert wilders On track to win a second consecutive election, but centre-left and centre-right parties are also in competition.
To get on the ballot a party simply has to pay a deposit of 11,250 euros ($13,077) and collect 580 declarations of support.
To determine who gets the seats, the Election Commission adds up all the valid votes and divides them by 150 seats. For example, in 2023 there were 10,432.726 valid votes, meaning any party getting 69,551 or more votes got the seat. This was good news for the populist JA21, which received 71,345 votes and one seat, but less so for the BVNL/Group Van Haga, which received 52,913 votes and returned empty-handed.
The large number of options translates into a plurality of parties in Parliament. When the previous four-party coalition government fell earlier this year, there were 15 parties in the House of Representatives.
In turn, forming coalitions becomes difficult. Negotiations may take several months to form a government that can command a majority.