Country-wide elections were held today for the city councils and their individual boroughs. I voted for Groen Links (the green left), both for my local borough of Oud Zuid and the Amsterdam municipal council. They lost a couple of seats in Amsterdam, but didn’t do at all badly compared to the CDA (Christian democrats) and some other parties.
The big winner, not just in Amsterdam, but across the country, is the PvdA (labour party). The SP (socialist party) is the other big winner, which means that city councils all over the country are now going to become left-wing alliances. This is great news, even though the party I actually voted for didn’t do as well as I’d hoped.
This election result appears to be strong evidence of the populace punishing the national government at the municipal level for myopic and polarised policies. I, for one, think this bodes well for the next four years.
Yay! Wonder if anything similar can happen in the US?