Launch of a petition for the introduction of an electoral threshold of three seats | Policy

Parties that do not win enough votes in elections to win at least three seats in the House of Representatives should now be banned with such an electoral threshold. On the internet this weekend is the website Augmentationkiesdrempel.nl launched. The initiators want to collect as many signatures as possible in the coming months and then present them to the House of Representatives after March 15.

During the last legislative elections, seventeen parties entered parliament, a record. This number has now increased to twenty due to the divisions. According to the initiators, this will only weaken the parliament. “Half the parties in the House have fewer than five seats,” they say. “Around the Binnenhof, one-liners for supporters and the upcoming elections predominate. As a result, oversight and legislative tasks are losers, especially in small factions where attention must be divided on many topics.”

From now on, a party wins a seat if it obtains at least 0.67% of the votes. If it belongs to the authors of the petition, this percentage will be increased to 2 by law, which means that a party must win at least three seats. If this limit had applied in previous elections, BBB, Bij1 and 50Plus (now Groep Den Haan) would not have entered the Chamber.

There is currently no policy majority in the House for the introduction of an electoral threshold. It exists in neighboring countries. In Germany and Belgium, a party must obtain at least 5% of the vote to enter parliament, in Sweden 4%. Last year, a survey of One today that 60% of the Dutch population would support the introduction of an electoral threshold fragmentation of parliament.

Besides Jo Ritzen, the initiators of the petition include former Secretary of State Yvonne van Rooy and economist Barbara Baarsma.

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