The D66 party has turned out to be the most popular party on Bonaire, St. Eustatius, and Saba in the election for the Dutch Parliament, held on November 22nd. The results on the island contrast those of the European Netherlands, where the PVV turned out the biggest vote-getter by far.

On Bonaire, D66 got a total of 746 votes followed by GL/PvdA with 500 votes and ChristenUnie with 417 votes. Other relatively popular parties with voters were the VVD (408) and the new party of Pieter Omtzigt, NSC (294).

On St. Eustatius, D66 got nearly half of all votes cast, namely 170 out of 339 votes cast. The second biggest party was BBB, which may be attributed to Walter Hellebrand was on the list for that party. None of the other parties was even remotely as popular as D66 and BBB.

On Saba 240 people voted, whereby 126 voted for D66, or nearly 53% of the total.

Van Huffelen

The high number of votes for D66 may in part be attributed to State Secretary Alexandra van Huffelen, who was consistently present on the islands and who also made progress on various important topics.

On Bonaire political commentator Arthur Sealy actively campaigned for the ChristenUnie, which may be the reason why the party scored relatively well as the second most popular party.

Low turnout

The voter turnout this year was low again, like was the case in other elections for Dutch Parliaments. Compared to previous elections, there was even less attention from local parties for the elections for the Second Chamber.

BES-Reporter