Elections of the Dutch Senate were held on 23 May 2011, following the provincial elections on 2 March 2011. The 566 members of the twelve States-Provincial elected the 75 Senate members. The new Senate was installed on 7 June 2011. The term ended on 8 June 2015.
Participating parties No. Party Top candidate 1 Christian Democratic Appeal Elco Brinkman 2 People's Party for Freedom and Democracy Loek Hermans 3 Labour Party Marleen Barth 4 GroenLinks Tof Thissen 5 Socialist Party Tiny Kox 6 Democrats 66 Roger van Boxtel 7 ChristianUnion Roel Kuiper 8 Reformed Political Party Gerrit Holdijk 9 Independent Senate Group Kees de Lange 10 Party for the Animals Niko Koffeman 11 Party for Freedom Machiel de Graaf 12 50PLUS Jan Nagel 13 Koornstra List Ruud Koornstra
Vote weights The provinces have different population sizes, so the members of the States-Provincial cast weighted votes, to ensure that each vote represents the same number of people. The weight is determined by dividing the population of the province by the number of seats in the States of that province. This number is divided by 100 and rounded.
Province Seats Population Vote weightStemwaarden Eerste Kamerverkiezing 2011 , Kiesraad South Holland 55 3,527,449 641 North Holland 55 2,691,426 489 North Brabant 55 2,453,936 446 Gelderland 55 2,005,298 365 Utrecht 47 1,228,579 261 Overijssel 47 1,134,434 241 Limburg 47 1,122,631 239 Friesland 43 647,280 151 Groningen 43 579,034 135 Drenthe 41 491,342 120 Flevoland 39 391,988 101 Zeeland 39 381,582 98
Result
Party 2007 2011Prognose zetelverdeling Eerste Kamer volgens ANP , Nederlands Dagblad difference People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) 14 16 +2 Labour Party (PvdA) 14 14 0 Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) 21 11 −10 Party for Freedom (PVV) 0 10 +10 Socialist Party (SP) 12 8 * −4 Democrats 66 (D66) 2 5 * +3 GroenLinks (GL) 4 5 +1 ChristianUnion (CU) 4 2 −2 Reformed Political Party (SGP) 2 1 −1 50PLUS (50+) 0 1 +1 Party for the Animals (PvdD) 1 1 0 Independent Senate Group (OSF) 1 1 0 Total 75 75 0
The coalition parties VVD and CDA and their supporting party, the PVV, won 37 seats in this election, one short of an overall majority. However, the coalition-friendly SGP won the last needed seat, and it is expected that the SGP will help the cabinet in obtaining a majority on most issues.Rutte haalt met SGP meerderheid in Eerste Kamer, Elsevier, 23 May 2011
- * Democrats 66 missed a seat and the Socialist Party gained one due to a mistake of North Holland States-Provincial member Wim Cool, who voted with a blue writing device instead of the prescribed red one.D66 stem senaat blijft ongeldig , Nieuws.nl, 31 May 2011
References