Four of the five aldermen in the new municipal council of Weert are women. That is unique in a medium-sized municipality in Limburg. No alderman is older than fifty years.
It is also politically striking that Weert Lokaal has a majority of the board positions with three of the five aldermen. VVD and D66 each supply one alderman.
Four women
The four women who will become or remain aldermen are Suzanne Winters and Michèle Ferrière on behalf of Weert Lokaal, Wendy van Eijk for the VVD and Lizbeth Steinbach for D66.
Politically active
Winters has been active in Weerter politics for twelve years. First as a member of the support group, then as a councilor from 2014, where she is party chairman from 2018 onwards. In the elections, she was in second place on the list of candidates. The number 3 on that list – Michèle Ferrière – also becomes an alderman. She has no experience in politics yet.
Party leader
Wendy van Eijk remains alderman for the VVD. She was the same during the previous term of office. Van Eijk was the party leader for her party. That also applies to Lizbeth Steinbach of D66. She has been a member of D66 since 2015 and has been party leader of the then one-person party of D66 since November 2019.
New period
Martijn van den Heuvel has entered into a new period as an alderman for Weert Lokaal. He has been an alderman since 2016 and was also the party leader in the elections in March. In that position he succeeded the popular Geert Gabriëls, who became a deputy.
Seat distribution coalition
With Van den Heuvel, Weert Lokaal remained by far the largest party. She retained her twelve seats. The other two coalition parties VVD and D66 both advanced one seat to 5 and 2 seats respectively. The coalition of Weert Lokaal, VVD and D66 can therefore count on 19 of the 31 seats in the city council.
Also read: D66 in coalition Weert, CDA to opposition
The new aldermen will be officially elected on Thursday in a meeting of the city council and then installed.
Well begun is half done
The coalition parties officially signed their coalition program on Tuesday evening. This has been given the title ‘Doing it together: Fair, Social and Ambitious’. According to formateur and incumbent alderman Martijn van den Heuvel, these three words characterize not only the content of the program but also the way in which the parties arrived at this program. “And that’s great. After all, a good start is half the battle,” says Van den Heuvel.
Opposition
Over the next four years, the opposition in Weert will be formed by DUS, CDA, PvdA and GroenLinks. Together they account for 12 seats. DUS doubled in the elections from 3 to 6 seats, the PvdA kept its one seat and GroenLinks also made its debut in the council with 1 seat. The CDA, which was still in the coalition in the previous period, fell from 6 to 4 seats.