Coevorder candidate councilors have the best chance of actually getting into the municipal council of all candidate councilors in the Netherlands. There are relatively few candidates: 69 are in the race for 25 seats. That is a 36.2 percent chance of getting a seat.
The chance that a candidate will find a place on the council here is many times greater than in Druten, Maastricht or Amsterdam, for example. There the chance is the smallest in the whole of the Netherlands: a chance of 7.3 percent. This is evident from research by NOS and regional broadcasters.
In Drenthe, the number of people in Coevorden who are putting themselves forward is also striking. In a municipality of comparable size, Meppel for example, more than twice as many candidates stand for election. Just like Coevorden, this municipal council has 25 seats available.
Many more candidates have also made themselves available in smaller municipalities, such as in De Wolden (92 candidates) or Westerveld (112 candidates). This makes Coevorden stand out both nationally and provincially. How come?
Local politicians and administrators are unanimous in their statement. “That has to do with the small number of parties,” says Cees van der Lans, chairman of CDA Coevorden. “You can get a seat quite easily. That’s different when you have a whole battery of parties, then it quickly becomes more difficult,” responds Irene Driehuis, chairman and candidate councilor of the Coevorder party PAC.
Viewed from a Drenthe-wide perspective, there appears to be a connection between the number of parties and the number of candidates: for example, the number of candidates in Coevorden is a lot less than, for example, the municipality of Midden-Drenthe. Here, 167 candidates, divided over nine parties, are participating in the race for 23 seats. The chance that candidates will become councilors here is the lowest in all of Drenthe at 13.8 percent.
However, there are also several municipalities with the same number of parties as Coevorden, but where the number of candidate council members is considerably higher, such as in Westerveld. There are 112 people on the electoral list here.
The parties in Coevorden are in any case satisfied with the composition of their lists. “We have maintained a careful procedure and have arrived at 18 candidates. We think that is a good number,” says Henk Mulder, BBC faction leader. “And those 18 are not list fillers, they are serious candidates.”
You have to do something for that, Mulder explains. “It is a continuous process, and the closer you get to the elections, the more exciting it becomes. But that process starts immediately after the elections.”
“It means asking around in your own network and looking around. A Drenthe habit is to personally approach people and ask whether they are open to it. Some people are reluctant, and some people are immediately enthusiastic.”
