The rural party led by Caroline van der Plas only saw the light of day in 2019 and won one more seat in the 2021 parliamentary elections.
However, in this week’s recent provincial elections, the centre-right BBB became the largest almost out of nowhere. The party mainly focused on nitrogen and strongly opposes the nitrogen policy of the Dutch government.
LOOK. Newcomer BBB surprises everyone with a huge victory in the Netherlands
The mega profit of the BBB is “a very clear cry to politics”, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said yesterday evening. The VVD leader spoke of “a very relevant signal” from the voter. Yet it is not yet clear to Rutte how he should interpret that scream. He said he needs more time for that.
Due to the major loss of the coalition parties, the Dutch government will also have to look for majorities for its plans in the new Senate. But that is nothing new, says Rutte. The current governing coalition has ruled for four years without the support of a majority in the senate. He does not yet want to say whether he expects this to become more difficult now that it is clear that the BBB will soon be the largest party there.
Yesterday, EU Commissioner Frans Timmermans congratulated BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) leader Caroline van der Plas with her “incredible result” in the Provincial Council elections. Van der Plas “clearly represents a certain feeling in the Dutch community,” concluded the first vice-president of the European Commission in Brussels. “It is a relief that that protest voice was not expressed in a xenophobic, racist form.”
The PvdA member said he did not see the election victory “as something of the countryside against the city”, because BBB did not only get the peasant vote.