Local Parties Dominate Dutch Municipal Elections as Turnout Rises to Highest Level Since 2018
Wednesday's council elections saw local parties secure their position as the dominant force in Dutch local politics, turnout rose to 54 percent as local parties took 35 percent of seats.
Dutch voters turned out in greater numbers than expected for the municipal council elections on Wednesday, March 18, with a national turnout of around 54 percent, up from the record low of 51 percent four years ago. The results confirmed and extended the long-running shift in Dutch local politics away from national parties toward locally rooted movements, while also producing clear winners and losers among the national parties.
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Local parties continue to dominate
Verreweg the most seats in the municipal council elections went to local parties, which continued their upward march according to projections from the ANP election desk. Local parties secured around 35 percent of all seats nationwide, up from 32 percent in 2022.
Notably, in several municipalities parties that did not exist four years ago immediately became the largest. In the Gelderland municipality of Westervoort, the new party Wij Westervoort won more than 33 percent of the vote and seven of the fifteen seats. In Oldebroek, also in Gelderland, more than 32 percent voted for the Christelijk Verbond Oldebroek, which had split away from the local SGP branch. New parties also became the biggest in Goeree-Overflakkee, Hardenberg, Best, Stede Broec and Texel.
The pattern reflects a broader appetite for politicians who focus exclusively on local issues, particularly housing, safety and opposition to asylum seeker centres, rather than importing national party lines into council chambers.
Hart voor Den Haag wins massively
In The Hague, Hart voor Den Haag, the party of former alderman Richard de Mos, won the election with 16 seats, seven more than the nine it held after 2022. The party has now won the most votes in The Hague for the third consecutive election. D66 came second with 8 seats, followed by GroenLinks-PvdA with 7. The VVD was the biggest loser in The Hague, dropping from 7 to 3 seats.
GroenLinks-PvdA leads the national parties
GroenLinks-PvdA appears to have emerged as the largest national party with around 13 percent of the vote nationwide. The merged left-wing party performed strongly in the major cities. In Rotterdam, GroenLinks-PvdA became the largest party with 11 seats, overtaking Leefbaar Rotterdam which also ended on 11 seats but with more than 3,000 fewer votes. In Utrecht, GroenLinks-PvdA won 14 seats, making it the largest party there too. In Amsterdam, with counting still underway at the time of writing, GroenLinks appeared to be leading with around 18 percent of votes and 10 seats.
D66 also made a modest gain nationally, rising from just over 8 percent to around 9 percent. Party leader and Prime Minister Rob Jetten said the national election win of D66 had now been reflected locally as well. The VVD and CDA both ended on around 11 percent nationally, with coalition parties broadly avoiding punishment at the ballot box despite controversial elements of the coalition agreement.
FVD the biggest national riser
Forum for Democracy expanded significantly compared to 2022, running in more than 100 municipalities compared to 52 four years ago. The party made gains in most places it contested and its leaders focused heavily on opposition to asylum seeker centres during the campaign. In Almere, FVD doubled from 2 to 4 seats, and in Doetinchem it went from 1 to 4. JA21 ran for the first time in seven municipalities and won at least fifteen seats across them.
NSC wiped out
NSC, the party of Pieter Omtzigt, was completely eliminated. It contested five municipalities including Amersfoort, Apeldoorn, The Hague, Eindhoven and Zoetermeer, and failed to win a single council seat in any of them.
PVV wins locally in some municipalities
In Terneuzen in Zeeland, the PVV became the largest party, jumping from 3 to 7 seats. The party also became the largest in Stadskanaal. Geert Wilders celebrated the results on social media, noting gains across a range of municipalities.
Turnout higher than feared
Before the election, some polls predicted turnout could fall below the 2022 record low. Instead, at least 54.1 percent of the roughly 14.3 million eligible voters cast a ballot. Several individual cities saw notable increases. In Nijmegen, turnout reached 58.4 percent, the highest in forty years. In Haarlem it exceeded 57 percent, the highest since 1998. Rotterdam mayor Carola Schouten had promised to abseil down the Euromast if turnout in her city beat 2022, and with Rotterdam coming in at 40.7 percent compared to 38.9 in 2022, she will now have to make good on that pledge.
What the results mean
The elections produced no single national narrative. Coalition formation in many municipalities will be complex, with council seats spread across a large number of parties. The continued rise of local parties and brand-new movements makes it harder for any single group to build a majority, while the success of parties running explicitly on anti-asylum platforms reflects ongoing tension over migration and housing at the local level.
