CDA increasingly not the largest

The last time the CDA received more votes in municipal elections, not counting interim redivision elections, was twenty years ago. In 2002, 20.5 percent of all votes went to local CDA branches. Since then, the Christian Democrats have only surrendered. After this week’s municipal elections, the counter stands at 11.2 percent. The CDA lost 240 seats.

Also read: CDA has to deal with another disappointment

It was not that bad, was the message that sounded at the party desk on election night. Polls suggest that the number of votes for the party would be halved. Member of Parliament Derk Boswijk of the CDA pointed Thursday in a meeting with campaign leaders in places where the party had made a profit: in Amsterdam it had seemed for a while that the CDA would lose its only seat on the council – and it had nevertheless managed to keep it. And in Utrecht the party had even gained a seat.

Lost strongholds

But if you compare the results of four years ago with those of this week, you will see: the CDA not only loses seats, but also the obvious fact that it is the largest governing party in the periphery. Four years ago, the election map of the Netherlands was still fairly green because the CDA had become the largest in many municipalities. But that win was already shaky then: the difference with the second game was often not very big. Now that the loss has continued, the green spots on the map have largely disappeared. In 2018, after the local elections, the CDA was still the largest in percentage in 69 of the participating municipalities. This is still the case in 40 municipalities.

The biggest loss was suffered by the CDA in Tubbergen, traditionally a Christian-democratic stronghold where the party had won local elections three times in a row. It has held the absolute majority for the past two council terms. The CDA has now lost it.

Also read: If CDA members in Tubbergen need him in the campaign, Pieter Omtzigt is still available

In Tubbergen, the number of seats halved: from twelve to six. Signed this month NRC already on how hard the departure of Pieter Omtzigt had fallen there and how alienated the CDA department feels from the national party. “We knew that we would not retain an absolute majority,” said party leader Christel Luttikhuis this week, a day after the elections. “And also that everything with Pieter Omtzigt, what happened nationally in the party, did not help.” A local issue, the construction of a new town hall, has also played a role, according to Luttikhuis. “It is what it is. You have to adapt to it. This is also democracy.”

The lost seats for the most part went to a recently founded, local party: Keerpunt 22. Its leader split from Forum for Democracy in the Provincial States earlier.

The election results show that the competition that CDA members fear from BBB seems justified. This young party decided not to participate in the municipal elections this year, but did enter into so-called ‘BBBond Societies’ with local parties in twenty municipalities. All municipalities in which the CDA also participated. In eleven of the twenty the CDA lost and the local party that had entered into an alliance with the BBB won.

Threat to CDA

It does not bode well for the CDA for next year’s provincial elections. BBB intends to participate as a party in all provinces. In Tubbergen in Twente, an agricultural area where there are many concerns about the consequences for farmers of the government’s policy to reduce nitrogen, it has often been said in recent weeks that this election could become a major problem for the CDA. Farmers say there that a vote for BBB can create a greater voice of opposition to cabinet policy in the Senate. This trade-off could pose a major threat to the CDA.

In the coming period, the CDA will have to consider how it can avert even more loss – again. Since last year’s loss in the elections to the House of Representatives, the faction of the House of Representatives has worked in collaboration with the Scientific Institute on so-called vision documents: on agriculture, climate and drug crime. More topics will follow in the near future.

After the elections to the House of Representatives, a voter survey showed that the loss of the CDA was partly due to the topics on which the party had campaigned: undermining by drug crime and the economy. Voters associate this with the VVD. The subject that CDA members do recognize themselves in: norms and values. This week it was noticed that CDA members everywhere said that they want to work on “a society with less me and more us”. It sounds like a cautious step to make that theme more emphatically their own.