Harrie van der Laan can’t believe his luck. The pioneer of the Party for the Elderly and Safety (POV) saw his party become the largest in both the municipality of Zaanstad and Wormerland. “I have to let this sink in, it’s a bit overwhelming. I didn’t see this coming.”
Harrie van der Laan (POV) celebrates – NH Nieuws
POV is allocated six seats in Zaanstad, the VVD and the Labor Party follow with five seats. The SP gets only one seat, the new BVNL does not get enough votes to enter the council.
After all the congratulations, Harrie van der Laan (POV) has some time to respond: “This is a historic battle, haha! Geez, what a party. Six seats and maybe a residual seat. And Wormerland also won with five seats.”
In the municipality of Wormerland, the POV thus received five seats, followed by VVD (four seats), GroenLinks (three seats), PvdA and CDA (two seats) and D66 (one seat).
Now Van der Laan is still a councilor, where he does not shy away from the blunt ax to start the discussion. “Occasionally we are quite firm and we have to be, you have to keep everyone awake a bit.” It does raise the question of how easy it is to forge a coalition, especially given the fragmented outcome. In addition, the current coalition (without the POV) has obtained a majority.
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René Tuijn of the Labor Party sees the number of seats in his party grow from four to five. “It is a very nice result, we are very satisfied. The feeling came over us that we could grow, but that only makes you nervous during the day. But now I am really happy.”
The VVD cheered cautiously: the party was awarded five seats by the Zaan voter. “It feels a bit double,” Stephanie Onclin says. “We are losing one seat compared to four years ago. But we see a very fragmented result in Zaanstad and we are very grateful for the five seats we have received.”
Disappointment at SP
There were less happy faces at the SP. Anna de Groot had imagined the evening very differently: her party will only get one seat during the coming term of office. “Balen, extremely disappointing. You go to such an evening with expectations, especially because you think ‘I conducted a very good campaign’. Then it is a pity that you only have 1 seat.”
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