Guus Bosman

The first elections results of the elections for the Dutch parliament have been coming in from 3 pm EST today.

1. A sad day for the PvdA: they were unable to leverage the failure of the VVD/CDA government to gain more seats and lost some 9 seats. Should Wouter Bos resign?
2. The biggest surprise is the very strong result for the Socialist Party. I disagree with their ideology but they are a true grass-roots party and have worked hard for their success.
3. The SP now probably has more seats that Lijst Pim Fortuyn ever had.
4. Balkenende will get a 4th chance to come up with a stable government. He will likely continue to represent the government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
5. There is now a party in Dutch parliament that has animal rights as its main priority.
6. It is now a good time for Mr. Marijnissen to start thinking about his successor, to prevent the SP from becoming a one-man party and prove that they are a strong organization
7. Mark Rutte has failed as the first man for the VVD. His party lost significantly, and only 36% of the VVD voters voted for Mr. Rutte. He should resign his partijleider position or will otherwise be moved aside by his party anyway.
8. It's sad that Mr. Wilders did quite well with a projected 6 to 9 seats. Unfortunately it shows that there is a consistent base of anti-immigrant voters.
9. The LPF likely no longer has any seats in parliament, nor does Mr. Nawijn get a seat.
10. "EenNL", a LPF follow-up party, did get a seat. Comment of its first man: "I would feel horrible sitting in parliament alone".
11. D'66 virtually disappeared (finally) from national politics after withdrawing support for Balkenende III.
12. The election results of Dutch citizens abroad will be published on Friday.