News of: Thursday, September 13 2012,

Dutch elections: Conservatives and Social Democrats win surprisingly - Dutch in favour of European cooperation

The Dutch elections of September 12 have ended in a large victory for 2 parties, the VVD (Liberal/Conservatives) and the PvdA (Social Democrats).

Of the two, the VVD has become the biggest party with 41 seats in the new parliament. PvdA will get 39 seats.

The big losers are Groen Links (Green Left), who went from 10 to 3 seats, and the PVV (anti-Islam, anti-Europe) who went from 24 to 15.
The CDA (Christian Democrats) went from 21 to 13.

The SP (Socialist Party) remains on 15 seats, and D'66 (Progressive Liberals) go from 10 to 12.

There are 150 seats in total in the Dutch parliament.

The election result mean a move to the polictical middle ground, away from the populist parties. It also means a move away from anti-European Union sentiments: PVV and SP are the biggest anti-Europe parties, while PvdA and VVD are both in favour of European cooperation.
The anti-Islam movement appears to have lost force considerably - the issue was hardly a theme in the elections.

Another important result of the outcome is the fact that Christian political parties no longer are very important. The 3 parties with a Christian background now have 21 seats in the 150-member parliament.
For decades, the Christian Democrats operated in the middle of the political spectrum, forming coalition governments either on the right or the left side - but normally as part of the government.
Now that CDA has suffered two big losses in a row, its traditional role seems to have gone, and with it Christian-themed politics.

A cooperation of VVD and PvdA in a new government seems an option, but the problem with this combination is that they have no majority in the Senate ('Eerste Kamer'). The Dutch legislation process requires not only a vote in Parliament, but also in the Senate.
There is a list of other majority options, like always, and normally it will take several months before a new coalition government has been formed.