The Hague: Dutch voters in Wednesday’s general election are spoiled for choice.
The country’s electoral commission has registered no fewer than 27 parties and 1,166 candidates vying for the 150 seats up for grabs in the House of Representatives.
That means a big ballot paper because it bears the names of all the parties and the candidates on each party’s list. The results are ruffled papers as voters wrangle big ballots and use a small red pencil to mark their choice, before folding up the paper and squeezing it through a slot in the ballot box. When polling booths close, vote counters around the country have to unfold the sheets all over again to tally the results.
The unwieldy sheet has become such an issue that this year, five municipalities are experimenting with streamlined, smaller ballot papers. They include a list of parties and numbers, while candidate names and their numbers are on a separate poster in voting booths.
The size of the ballot paper is a potent symbol for the fragmentation of Dutch politics in an age of increasingly deep divisions in society, but it’s not a new phenomenon.
There have long been many parties in Dutch politics, but in the past, a few big names took the lion’s share of votes, making coalition forming easier. In 1986, for example, 27 parties were on the ballot and nine won at least one seat, but three parties — the Christian Democrats, Labour Party and centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy — dominated with 54, 52 and 27 seats. Agencies