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The Hague, Netherlands

Immigrants leapfrog natives into local government

Published on : 11 March 2010 - 9:49am | By John Tyler (ANP Photo)


Dozens of immigrant candidates pushed aside colleagues with greater seniority to get elected to Dutch local councils in last week's elections.

They did this by getting more personal votes than others higher on their party's list of candidates.

This is not so unusual in the Netherlands, particularly in local elections, says Meindert Fennema, Professor of Political Theory at the University of Amsterdam. He explains the workings of the immigrant lobby.

How personal votes work

When the Dutch go to the voting booth, whether for elections to the national parliament or to municipal councils, they cast a vote for a political party. That is generally done by checking the name at the top of the party's list of candidates - the party leader.

But one can also check a name further down on the party’s list, thus choosing a person as well as a party. This is called a preference vote.

In other words, a candidate in a Dutch election has two ways to get elected. He or she can be high enough on the party’s list of candidates to take one of the seats allocated to that party under the proportional representation system.

Or a candidate can get enough personal votes to be elected, regardless of where he or she stands on the party’s list.

More about the Dutch voting system

“It’s a well-known phenomenon that well-organised immigrants vote for their candidate, man or woman, and in that way, these candidates fairly easily get onto the city council. After all, it doesn’t take that many personal votes.â€