NETHERLANDS

Population

Total population in Netherlands is 17,081,507 by 1st January 2017. 12.51% of the population is foreign born (Eurostat). The median age of Dutch is 41.47 which is slightly more than the European average of 40.36 (UN Data).

Political Parties

The most recent parliamentary election was held in March 2017. The prominent parties, vote shares in this election and their orientations are as follows (Parlgov):

Party Name

Vote Share

Ideological Orientation

People's Party for Freedom and Democracy

21.3

Liberal

Party for Freedom

13.1

Conservative

Christian Democratic Appeal

12.4

Christian democracy

Democrats 66

12.2

Liberal

GreenLeft

9.1

Green/Ecologist

Socialist Party

9.1

Communist/Socialist

Labour Party

5.7

Social democracy

ChristianUnion

3.4

Christian democracy

Party for the Animals

3.2

Special issue

50PLUS

3.1

Liberal

Political Reformed Party

2.1

Conservative

Think

2.1

Liberal

Forum for Democracy

1.8

Conservative

 

Electoral System

The system used in Netherlands is List PR with open lists in which parties make lists of candidates to be elected, and seats get distributed to each party in proportion to the number of votes the party receives(idea.int). The voter turnout in 2017 election was 81.93 % (idea.int)

Quality of Democracy

Netherlands is a parliamentary democracy. Quality of democracy score by Freedom House is 1 out of 7 where 1 is most free and 7 is least free. According to Transparency International, Netherlands is ranked 8th least corrupted among 180 countries with a score of 82 out of 100.

Gender Equality

36% of the parliamentarians are women currently while there is no legislated quota for women candidates. (idea.int)

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