The results of the 2025 House of Representatives elections show that GroenLinks-PvdA again is the largest party in Amsterdam, with a majority of votes in almost all districts. However, there are deviations in the turnout of eligible voters.
As in the previous House of Representatives elections, this time too, turnout in the South-East and Nieuw-West districts remains far behind the rest of the city. “I don’t understand how politics works and I think that if we were to receive that explanation here too, I would vote,” says a passer-by. Another adds: “If politicians do not come to these neighborhoods and only talk to people with a college or university education, they should not be shocked that fewer people will vote here.”
Political parties should go more into the neighborhoods, says Rachid Azrout, political scientist and assistant professor of political communication at the UvA: “If you look at how the population is distributed across the city, you often see that richer people live in the center or south, while many migrants settle in the suburbs. This can lead to certain tensions where, on the one hand, DENK is interesting for people and, on the other hand, there are native Dutch people living there who see that the public space is changing and moving more towards the PVV move.”
Little trust in politics
According to Azrout, most political parties do not enter neighborhoods where turnout is traditionally lower. He thinks there are still opportunities there: “It also has to do with where parties place their priorities. I can imagine that a party like the VVD thinks that their supporters are more likely to be in South than in Nieuw-West. If you are going to hand out flyers, it is logical that you do so in places where you encounter your potential voters.”
A number of passers-by in the center of Bijlmer and Nieuw-West answer briefly that they suspect that turnout is so low because politicians do not show themselves in those parts of the city. They also indicate that they no longer trust politics. “I really had doubts about voting and my family also had doubts,” says a young woman from the Bijlmer. “My family fled South America decades ago and hoped that things would be different here and we could rely more on politics, but unfortunately that is not entirely the case.”
More voters in the future
Despite the low confidence, this could change in the coming years, according to political scientist Azrout: “I think that in the long term the problem of people not voting will solve itself. The children of migrants grow up here and may feel more Dutch. I think there will be a natural progression, but that is not in the short term.”