Members of local political parties miss out on a function as mayor more often than those of the major national parties.
In more than one third of the more than four hundred municipalities, local parties in 2010 got the most votes, but only twelve members of local parties are wearing a chain of office.
According to research from NU.nl with data from the Electoral Council and Overheid in Nederland.
The local parties jointly took 23.66 percent of the votes in the municipal elections of 2010. In more than one third of the municipalities a local party was the biggest .
Alderman
The election is in reasonable agreement with the number of councilors that local party represent. More than 23 percent (324 of 1,398 councilors) are derived from a local party .
The small national parties all have a slightly lower percentage than the council election. Unlike Alderman, mayors are not democratically elected by the council.
Especially CDA and VVD take an advantage of this fact. They hold more positions as councilors and mayors as the election results suggest. PvdA has a representative number of councilors, but fulfills a much higher percentage in the election of mayor positions.
CDA has the highest number with 130 mayors in the Netherlands, according to a count by late January. VVD (107) and PvdA (99) followed at considerable distance. The local parties delegate twelve mayros, despite their large representation in the council.
Unstable
According to professor of public administration Arno Korsten it’s often implied that a local party in a college of Mayor and Alderman creates instability. “It is thought that these parties are not internally homogeneous, create disquiet and are less predictable.”
“That’s understandable. When parties suddenly become large, a new pattern needs to grow. The relationships must be set up and the leader has to be accepted.”
Political color
Anyone interested in a position as mayor needs to send a letter to the commissioner for the King. Candidates are selected from that pile. A confidential committee also looks at the possible candidates.
Such a committee is often composed with a majority of councilors of national parties, according to Korsten. “They find it abnormal that a candidate for mayor is a member of a local list. Such a candidate probably opposed againt the membership of a national party”, Korsten suspects.
“During this procedure more is considered than political color. A candidate of the local party is less likely , because he generally has fewer lines to The Hague.”
“Remember that a person who is mayor, from day one to forget his own political color. A mayor must stand above the parties. This is a golden rule.”
“A good mayor engages, reconciles with humor and takes the sting out of a difficult debate. That is much more important than political affiliation.”