2023 Dutch provincial elections

2023 Dutch provincial elections

15 March 2023

Party Leader % Seats ± Farmer–Citizen Movement 19.19% 137 People's Party for Freedom and Democracy 11.17% 63 GroenLinks 8.96% 51 Labour Party 8.12% 46 Christian Democratic Appeal 6.64% 43 Democrats 66 6.34% 32 Party for Freedom 5.76% 34 Party for the Animals 4.83% 25 JA21 4.40% 22 Socialist Party 4.24% 23 Christian Union 3.66% 22 Forum for Democracy 3.07% 15 Volt Netherlands 3.00% 11 Reformed Political Party 2.52% 16 50PLUS 2.30% 8

This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.

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Provincial elections were held in the Netherlands on the 15 March 2023, on the same day as the water board elections, as well as island council elections in the Caribbean Netherlands.

The elections resulted in a victory for the Farmer–Citizen Movement, which had been formed three years prior; the BBB won the popular vote and the most seats in all twelve provinces (tied for most seats with the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy in North and South Holland and GroenLinks in Utrecht).

These elections also indirectly determine the composition of the Senate, since the members of the twelve provincial states, alongside electoral colleges elected on the same day, will elect the Senate's 75 members in the Senate election on 30 May, two months after the provincial elections.

Electoral system

Main article: Elections in the Netherlands

Elections for the provincial councils of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands are held every four years in March using the D'Hondt method. Voters also have the option to cast a preferential vote. The seats won by a list are first allocated to the candidates who, in preferential votes, have received at least 25% of the number of votes needed for one seat, regardless of their placement on the electoral list. If multiple candidates from a list pass this threshold, their ordering is determined based on the number of votes received. Any remaining seats are allocated to candidates according to their placement on the electoral list. The size of the provincial councils ranges from 39 members for a province with fewer than 400,000 inhabitants to 55 members for a province with more than 2,000,000 inhabitants. As of 2023 there are a total of 572 seats in the provincial councils.

Schedule

Date	Event
19 December 2022	Last day for registration of parties
30 January 2023	Day of nomination
15 March 2023	Day of voting

Participating parties

As of 21 December 2022, 49 parties have been registered with the Electoral Council for participation in general elections, which carries over to provincial elections. Parties can also participate in a province by registering their party name in that province instead of nationally. Which parties participate differs per province, with most large parties represented in the House of Representatives participating in all provinces and some local and smaller national parties also participating.

Opinion polling

Main article: Opinion polling for the 2023 Dutch provincial elections

Seats summary

Legislatures and governments of the Provinces of the Netherlands, 2023–2027

Provincial councils
Province	BBB	VVD	GL	PvdA	CDA	PVV	D66	PvdD	SP	CU	SGP	JA21	FVD	Volt	50+	Provincial parties	Total
Drenthe	17	4	2	4	3	2	1	2	2	2		1	1	1		1 SLD 1	43
Overijssel	17	4	4	3	4	2	2	1	1	3	2	2	1	1			47
Friesland	14	3	3	5	4	2	1	1	1	2	-	1	1	-		5 FNP 4 PBF 1	43
Gelderland	14	6	5	5	4	2	3	2	2	3	3	2	1	2	1		55
Groningen	12	2	5	5	2	2	2	2	2	3			1	1		4 GB 3 PvhN 1	43
North Brabant	11	9	5	4	4	4	4	2	4	1		2	1	1	1	2 LB 2	55
Flevoland	10	4	3	3	2	3	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	-	1	1 SLF 1	41
Limburg	10	5	4	3	5	6	3	2	3		-	2	1	-	1	2 L-L 2	47
South Holland	8	8	6	4	4	4	4	3	2	2	2	4	2	1	1		55
Zeeland	9	4	6		5	2	1	1	1	1	5	1	1	-		2 PvZ 2	39
North Holland	8	8	7	7	2	3	4	4	2	1	-	3	2	2	2		55
Utrecht	7	6	7	3	4	2	5	3	1	3	2	2	1	2	1		49
Total	137	63	51	46	43	34	32	25	23	22	16	22	15	11	8	17	572
			6							1

A “-” in the table means that the party in question has not submitted a list of candidates for the 2023 election in that province.