‘Proposal Minister: choose MPs from now on per province’

Minister Judith Uitermark (Home Affairs, NSC) wants to implement a major reform of the electoral system. 125 of the 150 MPs must now be chosen via a provincial list. That writes RTL News.

The medium says it has an unpublished proposal from Uitermark in the hands of it. In the letter, Uitermark would propose to divide the country into twelve electoral districts, which correspond to the existing provinces. According to the minister, for example, the « root of the people’s representative in society » would be increased.

One of the agreements in the Government Program of the Cabinet Schoof was that there must be a new electoral system, that « the regional bond between voters and elected people » strengthens.

Twelve constituencies with their own list

The electoral lists for the parliamentary elections are now the same throughout the country. From now on, the twelve electoral districts must each get their own list, writes RTL News. Candidates could now only be on one regional list. In practice, the minister expects this to lead to candidates being eligible in the province where they live or where they come from.

How many MPs each province can send to The Hague would depend on the number of inhabitants. For example, Zuid-Holland could fill at least 28 seats, and Noord-Holland 21. At the moment there are relatively many MPs from the Randstad, and relatively few from provinces such as Brabant and Gelderland.

The remaining 25 room seats should become so -called liquidation seats. This means that Uitermark wants to prevent the parties in the new system from getting fewer seats than in the current system. The liquidation seats are distributed on the basis of the total number of votes that a party has achieved throughout the country.

Current electoral system scores the worst

According to RTL News, how the nearly 30,000 -entitled to vote in the Caribbean part of the Kingdom fits in with the plans of Uitermark is not clear from the proposal. The question of what should be done with the national party leaders would not be answered.

The Constitution prescribes that the House of Representatives must be chosen ‘proportionally’. Minister Uitermark had researchers from Leiden University, the University of Twente and the University of Amsterdam previously conducted research into various electoral systems. Out pale That the current electoral system of all options scores the worst on ‘geographical proportionality’.

The other members of the cabinet would have asked the Minister this week to seek support for her proposal from the coalition parties.

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