Talk:2006 Dutch municipal elections

Plural

Shouldn't the title be plural? I believe that is customary in English for any elections, but here there is not just one election but a whole bunch of them. DirkvdM 08:31, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

No reactions yet, so I'll make the move. And I'll give it the same format as the general elections articles, so "Dutch municipal elections, 2006" (was "2006 Dutch municipal elections"). DirkvdM 20:22, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Page doesn't load right

For me (Firefox 1.5) there is an issue with the [edit] buttons not appearing correctly, the 3 of them are bunched up below the results paragraph and are transposed over the text, making the last sentence unreadable. No idea what's causing it.

Float stack: when several object wth both float and clear (typically images and templates) attributes stretch over headers, it causes the [edit] link to move.--Circeus 01:48, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Delfzijl

On tv last night they said that the turnout in Delfzijl was 47,3% and that of those votes 20% were blanc. This has now twice been changed to those blanc votes being partial cause of the low turnout and the Volkskrant today seems to support that, but states that it was almost a quarter of the votes. Anyone now for once and for all (yeah, right :) ) what the truth is here? DirkvdM 12:29, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

This article describes the vote in Delfzijl. Apparently 3.012 of 10.317 votes were blank. If we know how many voters were elligible to vote we can do the math :) jacoplane 12:52, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

That 47.3% turnout number is wrong. 47.3% is the number of valid votes as percentage of the total possible votes. Total possible votes = 10317 / 0.473 = 21812. Total blanco votes = 3012 Total valid votes = 10317. Voter turnout = (3012+10317) / 21812 = 61.2%. Intangible 13:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

The confusion arrose early in the evening when the television programme (Nederland 2) on the municipal elections interpreted the figures incorrectly. And as so often happens, everyone else parroted the first medium that announced the figures, whithout checking them. On Groningen television (TVNoord) I watched mayor Cees Waal reading the outcomes; the version that is given in the article that Jacoplane cites is certainly not what the mayor literally said, despite the quotation marks in it. Wikiklaas 17:45, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Delfzijl results are as given here (source: de Volkskrant): PvdA 3754; Gemeentebelangen 248; CDA 1468; VVD 1168; CU 1823; Lijst Stulp 1204; PvhN 652; together this makes 10317 votes (= 47.3%) but that is without the 3012 blank votes. Wikiklaas 17:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Policy for naming parties

I was browsing through other links and noticed that it naming conventions seem to vary by article. Some use the translated names, others the dutch abbreviations (like this one) others write out the dutch name in full. Is there any standard policy on this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by SanderJK (talk • contribs)

It's best to use the translated name. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). jacoplane 14:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, the problem is that some dutch political party names become extremely long in nonabbreviated form (People's Party for Freedom and Democracy) and are unclear names to natives since they almost never appear unabbreviated (VVD, CDA in particular) let alone translated. And since political articles tend to mention party names a lot it can become very hard to read. SanderJK 14:38, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I think in this case it's fine to use the abbreviations. They are redirected in any case. The actual article titles should remain in English though. jacoplane 14:50, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

That seems fair. However, 'PvdA' is usually written as 'Labour Party', which is very confusing because that's also the name of a UK party. Labour party even states that the PvdA uses that name. Do they? But then it gives a listing of different socialist parties. So why is the SP not in that list? Alright, I could add it. But is Groenlinks also a socialist party? You can't group parties together like this. In Dutch politics articles, wherever I see 'Labour Party' I always change it to 'PvdA', but there really should be a consistent rule here. Consistent meaning using the Dutch name because some names can't be translated. Have a look at List of political parties in the Netherlands. Take ChristenUnie for example. 'Union' means something completely different in English, so that translation would be even more confusing to the non-Dutch than to the Dutch. In English, any political organisation called 'Union' will most definitely not be a party, I assume. Anyway, shouldn't that be 'Christians Union' (it's not 'Christelijke Unie').

And I'd be curious what a translation of Mokum Mobiel would be. I see ther is a stub on Mobile Netherlands. But shouldn't that be Netherlands Mobile? Why change the order of the words? Different people will translate differently and that is going to be a constant problem unless we decide not to translate at all. And then there's 'O O The Hague'? Oh dear me, yes, that should make that a lot clearer to native English speakers. :) Let's face it, you can't translate some names, so you shouldn't translate any. DirkvdM 19:55, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there is a problem in the translation of names. The current policy, which I support, is to translate names. But to make the discussion as open as possible we should maybe take it to List of political parties in the Netherlands. C mon 20:05, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Van Aartsen

Van Aartsen was fractievoorzitter (fractionleader), not lijsttrekker. Infact Van Aartsen never was ahead of a list of candidates.

Well, he was the "politiek aanvoerder", or "political captain", whatever that means. He had said that he would like to be the lijsttrekker, though clearly that is no longer the case. jacoplane 19:40, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

He was, until now, the only candidate for the election to become lijsttrekker for the next national election, while not formally having that title. But you are right, last election Gerrit Zalm was lijsttrekker.SanderJK 23:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

fraction

i don't believe we can just translate fractie with fraction, it just isn't right in english i believe. faction sounds better. Boneyard 19:53, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, fraction seems incorrect. SanderJK 22:25, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Both are incorrect. Parliamentary Party is the right translation (according to my dictionary) C mon 22:31, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

thats fine with me also, as long as fraction goes :) Boneyard 22:47, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

A little more complete, van Dale says 'parliamentary party' for 'representatives of a party' (as in 'in parliament', I suppose) and 'faction' for 'group within a party'. I wonder what that last bit is meant to refer to. Something like Wilders before he split of, or more vaguely like the left and right wing of CDA? DirkvdM 20:07, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

staatsecretaris

The link on the bottom of the page mentioning rutte links to politics in the netherlands, but as far as i can see (ctrl F) there is no mention of staatsecretaris or State Secretary, as seems to be the english translation of the title (as by www.government.nl). Not sure if the concept is explained anywhere, i think i saw it mentioned as "Deputy Minister in some articles"SanderJK 00:04, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

That was a typo, thanks for noticing! it was supposed to link to Politics of the Netherlands (terminology)

That page btw was set up to address the issue of the translation of dutch political terms and titles to solve the state secretary/junior minister/deputy minister/vice minister-problem.

C mon 20:05, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Help

It would be better writing if somebody were to insert at the front of the article what the Party acronyms actually stand for - or provide links for them.--John 02:34, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

seat loss

I made the table, with the seat loss as shown on tv. Someone changed some entries, including the loss for Leefbaar, from -288 to -80. That sounds unlikely. They lost a lot more, didn't they? And another change was for the local parties. I had put down 358, and that was changed to 2204. Out of about 10.000? With a loss of 208? Did local parties have 1/4 of the seats? DirkvdM 20:32, 9 March 2006 (UTC) DirkvdM 20:32, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I changed the table, according to the Volkskrant of March 8, local and other parties fell from 2412 to 2204 (-208). Leefbaar fell from 266 to 146 seats (-80). Leefbaar was really hyped and they only had candidates in some municipalities. C mon 21:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

This may be due to which parties are catagorized as "Leefbaar" parties, since there is

a) The very losely connected parties that started with Leefbaar Hilversum, later adding Utrecht, Nederland, Rotterdam and others, and

b) A lot of local parties named Leefbaar .... but unrelated. The best example of this is Leefbaar Den Haag, which i believe is a party made by 3 people who met in some kind of mental instutition, and had a homeless guy on their 4th spot. They never campaigned or put up posters, got 4 seats in 2002 (Democracy at work!), clowned around every council meetings, and spend most of their allocated party budget on a car. (Story as remembered from TV)SanderJK 23:25, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that's a brilliant story. Could someone please write an article on it? But it raises an interresting question. Can one register the name of a party to prevent others from hijacking it like this? And would that work with a name that changes from location to location and the base of which is an ordinary Dutch word? DirkvdM 09:32, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

To make it even more complicated the first Leefbaar parties (Hilversum, Oegstgeest etc.) where left wing progressive local parties. The later party of Leefbaar Nederland was at the start that also, until Pim Fortuyn and others saw a gap right of the VVD (The Netherlands most rightwing mainstream party) and jumped into that... Leefbaar Rotterdam resulted from that... and with the succes a lot of 'groups' in the country started there own 'Leefbaar'-party and got into the city-council just because of the name Leefbaar. Good examples for this are Leefbaar The Hague indeed but also Leefbaar Amsterdam (father and son in the council, doing almost nothing) and Leefbaar Leiden etc. etc. Those parties made ofthen a mess and splitting off in diffrent smaller parties, together with the mess with the LPF (still seen closely related to 'Leefbaar' by the people) resulting in losses for Leefbaar parties all over the country, even when in there city was no reason for that. --83.117.110.67 17:31, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Order of sections

Somone moved the bits under 'campaign' and 'voter trunout' up, above the results. I'd say the results should come first. That would also put the table next to the template, causing less white space (an alternative to that last bit might be to float the table, if anyone knows how to do that). DirkvdM 20:55, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Politibox

I think if the politics box is ging to be there, then it ought to be at the top. It looks ridiculously out of place there. Circeus 21:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, and what is that new box doing there? It doesn't give any extra info, except for the percentage change, which doesn't seem necessary to me or else could be added to the table. I'll be bold and remove it and move the politics box up. DirkvdM 07:14, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I wanted to put the photo just to the left of the politbox, but forgot how to do that. Anyone else? DirkvdM 07:21, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

You can't do that without removing the clear:right; style on the box or picture, something I would not recommend. Circeus 16:41, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

absolute majority

I wrote "Absolute majorities (over 50%) ... occurred only twice, both in Overijssel and held by the CDA, with the highest score being 78%." Freako changed that to "PvdA won an absolute majority in Winschoten, Groningen province with 49.7% of the votes, and CDA in Tubbergen, Overijssel province with 58.3% of the vote." First, I made a mistake by concluding majorities (ie seats) from vote percentages. However, the number of seats of the bigger parties are larger than the percentages suggest, due to the unfair distribution of remainder seats that favours larger parties. So this requires a little more research, for which I don't have the time just now. Furthermore, I based this on the results as published in the Volkskrant on the 'day after'. The two places with voter percentages over 50% are Dinkelland with 78% and Tubbergen with 58,3%. I reverted that bit, but the absolute majorities in seats should also be added (and the difference explained). DirkvdM 15:39, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems that the Volkskrant made a mistake when publishing the results. CDA Dinkelland scored 43.6% (and 9 of 21 seats). I think that for the Dinkelland results the Volkskrant accidentally added up the total number of votes for CDA, PvdA and VVD and called that "CDA", because in total these three parties received 78% of the vote. See http://www.ad.nl/verkiezingen/uitslag/?id=072

As far as I know, in only two municipalities a majority in seats was won. Tubbergen (12 of 19) and Winschoten (9 of 17). For Tubbergen the D'Hondt system of largest averages is used for the calculation of remainder seats, because its council has 19 seats. This system favours the largest party. In Winschoten the system of largest surpluses is used, because its council has less than 19 seats. This is a system that favours smaller parties, but the PvdA was so close to a remainder seat that it still got one. Therefore I will revert your edit back tp mine and add the number of seats these parties won. Freako 17:59, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

The official source, http://www.verkiezingsuitslagen.nl/verkiezingsuitslagen.aspx (linked to in the article), indeed gives 43,6% for CDA. And LD got 32% in stead of 2,6%, so Volkskrant made a bit of a mess of this. I have based some conclusions on these tables, so I hope I haven't introduced any more mistakes. And thank you for the explanation of the remainder seat assignment, byut I already knew that (I wrote that section in the Elections in the Netherlands article (you might have a look there to see if I got it all right). DirkvdM 08:34, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I looked at that article. You give as a source the book "Hoe wij kiezen" by Maurice de Hond. According to his wikipedia biography this book was published in 1986. However, in 1989 electoral law (Kieswet) was changed. This had quite some consequences for the way seats are assigned to candidates, especially when candidates are on more than one list. I will take a look at this part, and try to rewrite it. Freako 16:33, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

section order

Maybe it is just me,but wouldn't it makemore sense to have the sections in chronologicval order? That is, "campaign", "voters turnout", "results" and "aftermath"? (although I haven't read thoroughly through "Voter turnout",which might have more to do with "aftermath"). Circeus 18:15, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

It seemed to make more sense to me to have the results first, because that's what it's all about and what readers will be interrested in first. If you'd read an article about some elections somewhere what part would you look at first? Having said that, I suppose the table should also give an indication of the political orientation of the parties. I'll fix that now. DirkvdM 19:16, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

If you want to know the political orientation of the parties you can just click the link. Things like left liberal or right-wing don't have meaning anyways. Intangible 20:16, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

They have vague meanings, but how else can one describe a party in a few words? A more precise description should be in the party article, but no-one is going to read all those first before reading this, so a short description is needed for those who don't know what kind of parties they're looking at but want to know a bit about the Netherlands. DirkvdM 05:09, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Afghanistan & D66

Quote from the article:

"D66 fractievoorzitter Lousewies van der Laan remarked that this was the tenth election in a row (over 12 years) that D66 lost seats and that this time they would not seek the cause in external factors but within the party itself. People no longer know what D66 stands for. An example was the wavering stance of D66 on the Afghanistan mission debates in December and January, first opposing it and then going along with it."

What bothers me is the last sentence. Is it true? As far as I know, D66 remained against sending soldiers to Afghanistan, even though there was a large majority in the Second Chamber for the proposal. One of the few times D66 didn't waver at all. Freako 13:18, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Coalitions

Maybe this is a good place to gather info on which coalitions were formed, so that when the list is compete for the most important cities, that info can be added to the article. Adding it bit by bit would be a bit messy. DirkvdM 06:01, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

• Amsterdam: PvdA+GroenLinks: 27 out of 45 seats