It was not the result that Jade van der Linden of GroenLinks-PvdA had hoped for, but she is looking forward to picking up the thread again in Brabant. For a while it looked like she would enter the House of Representatives, but due to preferential votes she was unable to get a seat.
GroenLinks-PvdA fell from 25 to 20 seats. Van der Linden from Oss was in 21st place on the candidate list. Due to the announced departure of party leader Frans Timmermans, there seemed to be a chance that she would get a place in the House of Representatives.
The Electoral Council has yet to announce the official results, but Van der Linden no longer counts on a place in parliament. “I have not been elected as a Member of Parliament. According to our count, four preferential seats have been won within the party, but I am not one of them. It is how democracy works. I have a lot of confidence in the people who have been elected,” she responds.
Fidelity previously reported that it had analyzed the results in a hundred municipalities and concluded that thanks to preferential votes, ‘at least three’ candidates from GroenLinks-PvdA will enter the House of Representatives. Van der Linden was not mentioned.
Of course she had hoped for a different election result in which she would get a place on the plush, she says. “The polls showed it was within reach.”
‘Of course you’re upset’
Van der Linden says that she has concluded from the public official reports of the municipalities that she is excluded. “There you can see how many votes each municipality has. And there I saw that I do not have a preferential seat. When we saw the exit polls on Wednesday, I realized that I was not among them. I felt that,” she explains. “Honestly: of course you’re disappointed. It is what it is.”
Yet she looks back on the election campaign positively and will not give up. She remains group leader in the Provincial Council, where she is spokesperson for agriculture and nitrogen. She also works as a strategic advisor at Smart Links.
She says she is looking forward to continuing to work in Brabant. “There is still a lot of work to be done. Who knows what the future will bring,” she says optimistically.