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Politics of the Netherlands takes place in a framework of a Parliamentary Representative Democracy and a Constitutional Monarchy , where the Prime Minister Of The Netherlands is the Chairman of the Council Of Ministers , and of a pluriform multi-party system with about 15 parties at national elections. Executive Power is exercised by the government. Legislative Power is vested in the two chambers of parliament, together called the Staten-Generaal . The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. There are three territorial levels of government: the state, the provinces and the municipalities. At all three levels direct pluriform elections are held for the seats in the legislative chambers. This way a single party is almost never able to achieve a majority on it's own, resulting in the need to form ''coalitions'' with other parties. Once a majority has been formed during the ''formation'' phase in the legislative body, this majority proceeds to appoint the executive body. The only difference between the three levels in this respect is that the ''prime minister'', merely the chairman of his cabinet, is appointed by the coalition as well, whereas the provincial head (''Commissaris van de Koning(in)'', King's Commissioner ) and the municipality's head (''burgemeester'', Mayor ) are appointed by the crown (which has no legislative or executive powers at all), and do have limited special executive powers. For example, the mayor is also the head of police in his municipality. All this is designed to prevent the concentration of power on a single person or party. It is tradition for the largest party to emerge from elections to initiate coalition talks and to deliver the prime minister, usually it's leader, but on a national level there have been exceptions in 1971, 1977 and 1982, when the PvdA as largest party ended up in the opposition nonetheless. On provincial and municipal levels this happens more often. Being the largest party in a house is therefore no guarantee to be included in the coalition and therefore in the executive body. At the national level, the most important part of s. The '' Eerste Kamer '' ('First Chamber' or 'Higher House') has 75 members, who are elected indirectly by the directly elected provincial councils. The Tweede Kamer and the ministers can propose laws, the Tweede Kamer ratifies them after which they are sent to the First Chamber for ratification. Finally, the queen has to sign them into law, which is little more than a ceremony. The present constitution, which dates from 1814 and has been amended several times (the most important changes having been in 1840, 1848, 1917 and 1983), protects individual and political freedoms, including freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Church and state are separate. Universal Suffrage was instituted in 1917 (for women in 1918 ) and the voting age was lowered to 18 years in 1972 . HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Before 1917 , the Netherlands had a First Past The Post Constituency system with Census Suffrage (per the constitution of 1814 ), in which only wealthy men had the right to vote (in practice 15% of the men). Under influence of the rising Socialist movement (under Pieter Jelles Troelstra of the SDAP ) the requirements were gradually slackened until in 1917 the present voting system of a Representative Democracy with Universal Suffrage (for men) was instituted, expanded in 1918 to include women. Until 1966, Dutch politics were characterised by , the conservative-liberal VVD , the Catholic KVP and the two conservative-Protestant parties, the CHU and the ARP . Religion was the strongest basis for voting, much more than income (which only differentiated to some extent between PvdA and VVD, although even almost 20% of the higher incomes voted PvdA). Since no party ever gained an absolute majority, these political parties had to work together in coalition governments. These alternated between a centre left coalition of PvdA, KVP, ARP and CHU and a centre right coalition of VVD, KVP, ARP and CHU. From the 1918 until the 1963 elections, the Catholic party (first RKSP, then KVP) was the biggest party and had an almost constant electorate of around 30%, all Catholics (and 80% of the Catholics voted KVP - the strongest 'pillar'). During the 1960s , KVP's percentage almost halved to 17,7% in 1972 . After WWII, the communist CPN had their biggest share with 10,6%, but over the years that gradually dropped to a few percent in the 1970s . Over the same period, the VVD rose from 6% to 18%. So by the 1970's, confessional (religious) parties had lost much of their electorate and non-confessional voters had partly shifted from left to right. Non-religious voters, however, still largely voted PvdA. In the 1960's, new, non-confessional, parties started to appear, which were mostly popular with young voters, who were less religious. The post-war Babyboom meant that there had been a demographic shift to lower ages. On top of that, the voting age was lowered, first from 23 to 21 years in 1963 and then to 18 years in 1972 . The most successful new party was the progressive Liberal D66 , who had a pro-democracy, anti-pillarisation program. After 1966 pillarisation began to break down and a period of Polarisation and conflict started. Many parties remained. The three Christian parties however lost many votes and were forced to cooperate. In 1977 they formed the Christian-democratic CDA , which became a major force in Dutch politics, partaking in governments from 1977 until 1994. Because of the rise of VVD and the formation of CDA (and despite the appearance of new parties), these two and the PvdA remained as the 'big three' and media attention, which had previously been divided fairly evenly between parties, now focused on these three. In 1990, four small left-wing parties decided to also unite, in GroenLinks , with considerable success. Starting in 1994 , the very left-wing Socialistische Partij (SP) rose even more spectacularly under Jan Marijnissen . In 1994 the CDA lost many votes and for the first time in ninety years a cabinet was formed without a Christian-democratic party. The cabinet was formed by VVD , D66 and PvdA , forming a bridge between left and right, called Paars (purple - a mix of red and blue), which lasted two terms. Although enjoying a period of economic prosperity, the cabinet lost its majority in the 2002 elections due to the rise of LPF , the new political party around the flamboyant Pim Fortuyn , who campaigned on an anti-immigration program. Fortuyn was shot dead a week before the elections took place. In the elections the LPF went from nothing to 17% of the vote, entering the Second Chamber Of Parliament with 23 seats. A Cabinet was formed by CDA , VVD and LPF , under Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende . It proved short-lived: after only 87 days in power, the coalition fell apart as a result of consecutive conflicts within the LPF and between LPF ministers. In the ensuing elections in January of 2003, the LPF dropped to only 8 seats in the Second Chamber . The Balkenende II cabinet was formed by CDA , VVD and D66 . Against popular sentiment, the cabinet continued an ambitious program of reforming the Welfare State , the Healthcare System and Immigration policies and is still in power today. The next general election are scheduled for 3 April 2007 . Regionally, the most striking differentiation was the popularity of KVP in the Catholic southern provinces of Limburg and North Brabant . This still holds true for CDA, albeit to a much lesser extent. For other parties, what regional differentiation there was has all but disappeared, except for the communist CPN , which, until it merged into Groenlinks, got almost all its votes from the provinces North Holland and Groningen . In the small municipality of Reiderland , they even always had a vast absolute majority since WWII, a quite unique phenomenon in a parliamentary democracy. Also, voters hardly differentiate between the level of elections. They will generally vote for a specific party, irrespective of whether the election is national, provincial or municipal. More specifically, regional votes are often strongly influenced by the national politics of the day. This effect is so strong that results of regional elections are often added up to give an indication of what the results of national elections would have been if they had been held that day. And in 1966 and 1982, the cabinet even fell as a result of provincial elections (but continued for a short while as minority caretaker cabinets - the only two since WWII). Given the consensus-based nature of Dutch Government, elections do not generally result in any drastic change in foreign or domestic policy, although polls indicate a dramatic swing to the left for the next elections, which would contrast sharply with the present cabinet, which is one of the most right wing cabinets since the late 19th century; . The municipal election results of 7 March 2006 were an early indication of this, with the left wing parties taking back the votes they lost in 2002. EXECUTIVE BRANCH
LW = Lijst Welter
YEARS OF FORMATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES
SEE ALSO
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