“Political Horse Trading for Residual Seats in the Senate Elections”

• Guus Dietvorst

  Political editor

• Sarah Bürmann

  interior editor

“I thought: what kind of separate world have I ended up in? This way of negotiating is not transparent at all,” says Marc Oudenhoven, who has been a Member of Parliament in North Brabant since March. The party leader of Local Brabant is surprised about the horse trading for the Senate elections, which will take place tomorrow. Three national parties have already knocked on his door for his vote. They hope to increase their chance of a residual seat.

All 572 new Members of Parliament may vote. They then elect the 75 members of the new Senate in their own provincial houses. It is already clear which party they go to for the vast majority of those seats, but it is by no means the case for eight remaining seats. Parties are still trying to influence the distribution of those seats.

Oudenhoven’s provincial party falls under the national umbrella of Independent Politics Netherlands (OPNL), which has provided a senator under the old name OSF for the past four years. This time, the provincial OPNL members have more than enough votes for one seat, but not nearly enough for two. So they have votes ‘over’ and other parties prey on that.

“These requests come from both coalition and opposition parties,” says Oudenhoven. “Their people here in the province are sent forward as a kind of scout to see if we can make agreements about our votes. Such a question comes indirectly from The Hague.”

Alfred Schoenmaker of Sterk Lokaal Drenthe was also surprised by the questions from two national coalition parties to vote for their candidates. “I think the whole trading in votes is perverse. Of course it’s not forbidden, but I don’t think it’s neat either.”

Yet many parties participate. But that does not mean that all eight remaining seats are at stake, explains Simon Otjes. The political scientist at Leiden University sees mainly two opportunities for the coalition. “ChristenUnie is quite close to an extra seat. A party with a fairly certain residual seat, for example D66, could help them.” That means that a D66 member of parliament should vote for the ChristenUnie. The first candidate to lose a residual seat is then SGP.

Whether this is indeed the plan of the coalition, the parties are holding their cards against their chest. “I think that the coalition always supports each other”, ChristenUnie party chairman Tineke Huizinga wanted to say to News hour.

News hour about the political horse trade for residual seats in the Senate:

The coalition can also get an extra seat by helping the CDA, says Otjes, who has a spreadsheet that can calculate all possible shifts. VVD has a “fairly certain residual seat” and CDA has none. A VVD member in a province with enough voting weight could vote for the CDA. After the SGP, BBB is the next candidate to lose a residual seat.

Not every vote of a Member of Parliament carries the same weight. It’s like this:

“But this is a situation where the VVD can run a risk if too much shifts,” says Otjes. Because it cannot be ruled out that opposition parties will also make agreements among themselves to defend residual seats. For example, JA21 has ‘over’ votes and could help other right-wing parties by voting strategically.

This is the purely arithmetic reality of horse trading. In practice, mutual relations, political content and the favor factor also play a role.

For example, does the aforementioned D66 member feel like voting for the ChristenUnie? The parties are together in a coalition in the House of Representatives, but a Member of Parliament may of course have fundamental objections.