09-15-2005, 05:14 PM
What an impressive election system...
Over here, it's quite simple: there's a big voting machine that lists all parties and all candidates. You press the button of your favourite candidate, press the red button, and you're done.
There are plenty parties to choose from, and there's no 5% obstacle: all you need is 1/150th of the votes to get 1 of the 150 seats.
The seats are distributed proportionally to the number of votes per party. Who gets in the seats depends on the "preference votes". Most people will vote for the number 1 on the list, but often other candidates are popular enough to go from an unelectable position into parliament. If it doesn't add up exactly, the remaining seats are given to the party or combination of parties who have the most "left-over votes".
In the Netherlands, we get the following parties:
CDA - christian democrats, right-wing conservative but tend to go with the left parties on humanitarian and environmental issues.
PvdA - labour.
VVD - liberals, conservative.
SP - socialist party. very popular because they are very active outside parliament
GroenLinks (GreenLeft) - the greens. (I'm a member of them).
D66 - liberals(ish), middle to sometimes progressive(ish). main points are political reforms for more democracy and education. will go against their principles to stay in government.
ChristenUnie - Small Christian party, more christian than the CDA.
SGP - the *really* christian (protestant) party. women aren't allowed to be full member, which is why a judge recently ordered the state to stop their subsidies. Stable at 2 seats.
LPF - what remains of Pim Fortuyn. Will be gone next elections probably.
A few people have left their party and remain in parliament as independent members (it's the person that gets the seat, not the party!). Best known is Geert Wilders, who will probably win a few seats next year with his right-wing conservative party.
In the elections there's double that participating, from Katholics and Hinduists to the Party for the Animals (nearly getting a seat!).
Lots of choice, which I like. I wouldn't want to live in a country with a two-party system.
Over here, it's quite simple: there's a big voting machine that lists all parties and all candidates. You press the button of your favourite candidate, press the red button, and you're done.
There are plenty parties to choose from, and there's no 5% obstacle: all you need is 1/150th of the votes to get 1 of the 150 seats.
The seats are distributed proportionally to the number of votes per party. Who gets in the seats depends on the "preference votes". Most people will vote for the number 1 on the list, but often other candidates are popular enough to go from an unelectable position into parliament. If it doesn't add up exactly, the remaining seats are given to the party or combination of parties who have the most "left-over votes".
In the Netherlands, we get the following parties:
CDA - christian democrats, right-wing conservative but tend to go with the left parties on humanitarian and environmental issues.
PvdA - labour.
VVD - liberals, conservative.
SP - socialist party. very popular because they are very active outside parliament
GroenLinks (GreenLeft) - the greens. (I'm a member of them).
D66 - liberals(ish), middle to sometimes progressive(ish). main points are political reforms for more democracy and education. will go against their principles to stay in government.
ChristenUnie - Small Christian party, more christian than the CDA.
SGP - the *really* christian (protestant) party. women aren't allowed to be full member, which is why a judge recently ordered the state to stop their subsidies. Stable at 2 seats.
LPF - what remains of Pim Fortuyn. Will be gone next elections probably.
A few people have left their party and remain in parliament as independent members (it's the person that gets the seat, not the party!). Best known is Geert Wilders, who will probably win a few seats next year with his right-wing conservative party.
In the elections there's double that participating, from Katholics and Hinduists to the Party for the Animals (nearly getting a seat!).
Lots of choice, which I like. I wouldn't want to live in a country with a two-party system.