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The Dutch municipal elections of 2006 were held on March 7, 2006. About 11.8 million people could vote in 419 municipalities. Due to local redistricting, 15 municipalities have already held elections in January 2006 and 24 municipalities will hold elections in November 2006. In some cities, such as Amsterdam, there were two elections, for the municipality and for the 'stadsdeelraden' (borough councils). ==Results== Official results were announced on March 9, 2006 ((official site )). PvdA (Labour Party) obtained the most votes and seats, more than making good the losses of the 2002 elections. The Socialistische Partij almost doubled in size, partly due to its participation in more municipalities than in 2002. CDA, VVD and D66 all had noticeable losses, which may in part be caused by dissatisfaction with the current national government, of which they are the coalition partners. Overall, local parties of the Leefbaar type lost out as well after some success during the previous elections. The following results are as yet incomplete because 24 of the 443 municipalities will have the elections in November (due to redistricting). In the 419 municipalities of the March elections the 8861 seats were filled as follows It should be noted that, although the above shows the total results for the whole of the Netherlands, this has no official effect on national politics. It is often seen as an indication for it, but the issues and the parties that participate at the two levels don't always coincide. For example, SP got almost twice as many seats because they participated in almost twice as many municipalities as it did in 2002, which will in part explain their success, but even so, they still didn't participate in all municipalities, so not everyone could vote for them. However, since this comparison is often made, a larger scale poll was held, showing that the government parties would have lost 17 seats in parliament if national elections would have been held on that day (with CDA losing 13 seats) and the left wing parties would have each won seats; PvdA +7, SP +8 and GreenLeft +2. This is fairly similar to the election results and a confirmation of polls showing a possible majority (and thus coalition) for the three left-wing parties, which would be a first in the Netherlands and may be a reaction to what they call the present 'right-wing winter'. The 'forgotten winner' (who received little media attention) was ChristenUnie (CU), who were allied with SGP in many municipalities, but represented the winning part with 420 seats (SGP has always had a very steady following). Leader André Rouvoet now says that this alliance might no longer be a good idea because precisely there where SGP refused an alliance because CU had a woman in their list was where CU grew. SGP's attitude towards women brushes off badly on CU. In keeping with their left-wing Christian nature, ChristenUnie was most successful in a band across the Netherlands that starts in the south west and largely coincides with the Dutch Bible belt, but ends in the heavily socialist north east. As D66 focussed on local issues in their campaigns but suffered further losses, a common occurrence when the party participates in government. In 2005, D66 minister Alexander Pechtold had proposed moving the elections in some municipalities to different years in order to reduce the influence of national politics, but this was opposed by the CDA. Media attention before election day was manifested around Rotterdam, where the late Pim Fortuyn's Leefbaar Rotterdam was a surprise winner in 2002, knocking PvdA out of the coalition for the first time since WWII. But now, PvdA even gained more seats than they had before 2002, and became the largest party once again. Leefbaar Rotterdam came second and has already made clear it is not willing to enter a coalition with the Labour party, making the formation of a coalition difficult because all other parties are small (less than 10% of the votes). In these 419 municipalities, percentages of over 30% were reached almost only by PvdA (in 64 municipalities, mostly in the northern provinces, especially Groningen and Friesland) and CDA (59 times, mostly in southern provinces). Percentages over 40% were reached in 29 municipalities, again almost exclusively by PvdA (12) and CDA (10). Absolute majorities (over 50%), which would not require a coalition, are a rarity in a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation and occurred only twice. PvdA won an absolute majority in Winschoten, Groningen province with 49.7% of the votes and 9 out of 17 seats in the council, and CDA in Tubbergen, Overijssel province with 58.3% of the vote and 12 out of 19 seats in the council. Half the people have voted for the person at the top of the list. One third have voted for someone they met personally. The enormous rise of SP in some municipalities presented several candidates with a problem because they have to take a seat in the council but can't combine it with their 'normal' jobs. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dutch municipal elections, 2006」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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