The
House of Representatives (in Dutch:
Tweede
Kamer der Staten-Generaal ( , literally "Second Chamber of
the States-General"), short
Tweede Kamer), is the
lower house of the Netherlands'
parliament, the
States-General. It has 150
seats which are filled through
elections using a
party-list proportional
representation.
It sits in The Hague
.
Functions
The House of Representatives is the main chamber of parliament,
where discussion of proposed
legislation
and review of the actions of the
cabinet takes place. Both the
Cabinet and the House of Representatives itself have the right to
propose legislation; the House of Representatives discusses it and,
if adopted by a majority, sends it on to the
Senate (
Eerste
Kamer).
Review of the actions of the cabinet takes the form of formal
interrogations, which may result in
motions urging the cabinet
to take, or refrain from, certain actions. No individual may be a
member of both parliament and cabinet, except in a
caretaker cabinet that has not
yet been succeeded when a new House is sworn in.
The House of Representatives is also responsible for the first
round of selection for
judges to the Supreme
Court (
Hoge Raad der
Nederlanden). It submits a list of three names for every vacant
position to the Government.
Furthermore, it elects the Dutch
Ombudsman
and his subsidiaries.
Elections
The maximum term of the House of Representatives is four years.
Anybody eligible to vote in the Netherlands also has the right to
establish a
political party and
contest elections for the House of Representatives (see
political parties of the
Netherlands). Elections are called when the government loses
parliament's confidence, the governing coalition breaks down, the
term of the House of Representatives expires or when no governing
coalition can be formed.
Parties wanting to take part must register 43 days before the
elections, supplying a nationwide list of at least 30 candidates.
Parties that do not have any sitting candidates in the House of
Representatives must also pay a deposit (11,250 euro for the
November 2006 elections, for all districts together) and provide 30
signatures of support from residents of each of the 19 electoral
districts in which they want to collect votes. The candidate lists
are placed in the hands of the voters at least 14 days before the
election. Two or more parties can agree to combine their separate
lists (this is known as a '
list
combination' or
lijstencombinatie), which increases
the chance of winning a remainder seat. Each candidate list is
numbered, with the person in the first position known as the
lijsttrekker (top candidate).
The lijsttrekker is usually appointed by the party to lead its
election campaign. The lijsttrekker of the party receiving the most
seats will often become the
Prime Minister. Parties
may choose to compete with different candidate lists in each of the
19 electoral districts, but as seats are allocated on national
rather than district level, most parties have almost identical
lists in all districts with candidates running nationwide. Only
large parties usually have some regional candidates at the bottom
of their lists.
Citizens of the Netherlands aged 18 or over have the right to vote;
exceptions are: 1) prisoners serving a term of more than one year
are excluded; 2) those who have been declared incapable by court
because of insanity are also excluded. A single vote can be placed
on any one candidate. Many voters select one of the lijsttrekkers
(
Jan Peter Balkenende, for
example, received 2,198,114 of the CDA's 2,608,573 votes in the
November 2006 elections), but alternatively a preference vote may
be made for a candidate lower down the list.
Once the election results are known, the seats are allocated to the
parties. The number of valid national votes cast is divided by 150,
the number of seats available, to give a threshold for each seat
(the
kiesdeler). Each party's number of votes is divided
by this threshold to give an initial number of seats. Any party
that received fewer votes than the threshold (i.e., less than one
in 150 of the total votes cast) fails to gain representation in the
House of Representatives, thus the threshold is always at 0.67% of
the total number of valid national votes. This is one of the lowest
thresholds for national parliament elections in the world. In
1977, for instance, one
party gained a seat despite winning only 0.77% of the vote. Any
party that received more than 75% of the threshold will have its
deposit refunded.
After the initial seats are allocated, the remainder seats are
allocated using the
D'Hondt method of
largest averages. This system favours the larger parties.
List combinations compete for the remainder
seats as one list of the combined size of all parties in the
combination, thus having more chance to gain remainder seats.
Afterwards, the seats are allocated to the parties within the list
combination using the
largest
remainder method.
Once the number of seats allocated to each party is known, in
general they are allocated to candidates in the order that they
appear on the party's list. (Hence, before the elections, the
candidates near the top may be described as in an electable
position, depending on the number of seats that the party is likely
to obtain.) At this stage, however, the preference votes are also
taken into account. Any candidate receiving more than one quarter
of the threshold on personal preference votes (the 'preference
threshold' or
voorkeursdrempel, 0.1675% of the total
number of valid votes), is considered elected in their own right,
leapfrogging candidates higher on the list. In the November 2006
elections, only one candidate received a seat exclusively through
preference votes, while 26 other candidates reaching the preference
threshold were already elected based on their position on the list.
If a candidate cannot take up the position in parliament (e.g., if
they become a
minister, decide
not to enter parliament, or later resign) then the next candidate
on the list takes their place.
After all seats are allocated a government is formed, usually based
on a majority of the seats. The
monarch appoints an
informateur, who checks
out possible coalitions, and
formateur, who leads
formation negotiations. At the end of the negotiations, the
formateur becomes prime minister. Although the formateur is usually
from the largest party in parliament, his nomination can be seen as
one of the greatest powers the monarch holds in Dutch politics. All
cabinet members must resign from parliament, as the constitution
does not allow a cabinet member to hold a seat in the House of
Representatives.
Since the current party-list proportional representation system was
introduced in 1918, no party has even approached the number of
seats necessary for an outright majority. Between 1891 and 1897,
the
Liberal Union was the last party
to have an absolute majority of the seats in the House of
Representatives. All Dutch governments since 1918 have been
coalitions of two or more parties.
Current situation
Main article:
List of members of the House of Representatives of the
Netherlands
Previous situation
Elections were held on 22 January 2003 after the resignation of the
first Balkenende cabinet.
The PvdA's
lijsttrekker, Wouter Bos, declared that
he would not become Prime Minister if his party lost: the party's
candidate was not announced until a few days before the election -
Job Cohen, the mayor
of Amsterdam
, who did not take part in the campaign. The
negotiations following the election were lengthy and resulted in a
coalition of CDA, VVD and D66 and the
second Balkenende cabinet.
The other parties contesting the elections were:
Partij voor de Dieren (47,754),
Leefbaar Nederland (38,894),
Partij van de Toekomst
(13,845),
LijstRatelband.nl
(9,045),
Duurzaam Nederland
(7,271),
Nieuwe Communistische
Partij-NCPN (4,854),
de
Conservatieven.nl (2,521),
Vooruitstrevende Integratie
Partij (1,623),
Alliantie voor
Vernieuwing en Democratie (990) and
Lijst Veldhoen (296). All of these parties
lost their deposit, except for LN which, as a sitting party, had
not had to pay it.
The total number of votes cast was 9,654,475, giving a threshold
required for a seat of 64,363.167. GL and the SP combined their
lists for the calculations, as did the CU and the SGP. The two
candidates obtaining seats only because of preference votes were
H.P.A. Nawijn (LPF) (21,209) and J.C. Huizinga-Heringa (CU)
(19,650).
Exterior
The Socialistische Partij lost one seat in February 2004 when it
expelled
Ali Lazrak. Lazrak decided to
continue as a one-man party.
In August 2004 the entire LPF parliamentary party resigned, due to
internal politics. They remained as an independent parliamentary
party, continuing to use the name LPF.
On 2 September 2004 the VVD also lost a seat when
Geert Wilders left the parliamentary party. He
too decided to continue as a one-man party.In 2005,
Hilbrand Nawijn, former
Minister without Portfolio for
Immigration and Integration in the first
Balkenende Cabinet, departed from the LPF to
become the third one-man-party in the House.On 7 June 2006,
Gonny van Oudenallen was
installed as successor of
Margot
Kraneveldt, who retired from parliament and moved to the PvdA.
Although on the LPF list for the 2003 elections, Oudenallen sat as
a one-woman party.On 16 August 2006, LPF party leader Gerard van As
stepped over to Hilbrand Nawijn's party.On 6 September 2006,
Anton van Schijndel was removed
from the VVD parliamentary party. He became part of a two-member
parliamentary party with
Joost
Eerdmans, who was removed from the LPF on 20 September
2006.
The new president of the House of Representatives was elected on 6
December 2006. The winner was
Gerdi
Verbeet. The previous president (2002-2006) was
Frans Weisglas, who retired on 29 November
2006.
Historical periods
representation per party 1946-
To give an overview of the history of the House of Representatives,
the figure on the right shows the seat distribution in the House
from the first general elections after WWII (1946) to the current
situation. Until 1956, there were 100 seats. This was expanded to
150 seats, which is the current number.
The left-wing parties are towards the bottom, the Christian parties
in the centre, with the right-wing parties towards the top.
Occasionally, single-issue (or narrow-focus) parties have arisen,
and these are shown at the extreme top.
Vertical lines indicate general elections. Although these are
generally held every four years, the resulting coalition
governments do not always finish their term without a government
crisis, which is often followed by fresh elections. Hence the
frequent periods shorter than four years.
External links
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
