Liveable Rotterdam remains by far the largest fraction in Rotterdam, according to an interim preliminary result from the municipality. The Rotterdam city council (45 seats) welcomes two to three newcomers (Volt, BIJ1 and possibly Forum for Democracy) and the current coalition of six parties loses its minimal majority.
That is a tentative conclusion of the municipal elections, with a preliminary turnout of 38.9 percent that is historically low: certainly since the early 1970s, the final turnout has not been this low. In the preliminary interim results of Wednesday evening, when this newspaper had to go to the printer, more than 22 percent of all votes had been counted.
Left out
The right-wing conservative people’s party Leefbaar Rotterdam, which was kept out of the coalition four years ago, had 21 percent of the vote according to the provisional count and may have ten or the current eleven seats. It has surprised party leader Robert Simons, he said in the Get Back café on the Stadhuisplein: “Especially in neighborhoods where Leefbaar is large, few people have started voting,” said Simons. This is in addition to the corona measures, for example due to the allowance affair and the higher energy prices, he thinks: “People can no longer pay the bills. Then you have something else on your mind than to vote.”
The current ‘rainbow coalition’ (VVD, D66, GroenLinks, PvdA, CDA, ChristenUnie-SGP) seems to lose the majority of 23 seats. The heart is formed by the twenty seats of the VVD, D66, GroenLinks and PvdA, each of which has five seats, but there seems to be some loss. The CDA may drop from two to one seat. The ChristenUnie, which participated for the first time without the SGP, did slightly better according to the provisional count and reached 4 percent.
The national newcomers Volt and BIJ1 both obtained 4 percent of the vote, which may give them two seats each. The 25-year-old list leader Mieke Megawati Vlasblom said to be “proud” on the results evening in city hall. “For the first time, a very young audience has started voting” – that is what BIJ1 would owe the seat gain to, according to her.
Competitor Denk had, according to the interim count, 9 percent of the vote and seems to retain the current four seats in any case.
Forum for Democracy, a party that was relatively invisible during the election campaign, would have received 2 percent of the vote according to the preliminary results. The PVV, which made its debut in Rotterdam four years ago, did not participate now due to a lack of candidates. Ex-PVV member Maurice Meeuwissen participated with his own list, but would not have made it to the council.
The SP split in two in the run-up to the elections and competed with the radical split Socialisten010. According to the preliminary results, the SP’s reputation won in the elections; the Socialisten010 seemed to get stuck at around 1 percent of the vote.
The provisional turnout in Rotterdam seems to be historically low at 38.9 percent: “A disappointingly low turnout,” said Mayor Aboutaleb. Wilgo Pengel of Wij Colorful Rotterdam, who does not seem to have passed the electoral threshold, calls the low turnout dramatic: “Particularly in South Rotterdam, turnout is very low and I understand that. Just look at the composition of the council: it is mainly the people from the north and east who determine what happens in the south.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of March 17, 2022