Voting for the municipal elections explained
On the 18th of March it’s time to cast our ballots again, this time for the municipal elections. And a lot of internationals are allowed to vote in municipal elections!
You are allowed to vote if you are an EU citizen and registered in Utrecht, or when you’re not an EU citizen and you’ve been living and registered in the Netherlands for five consecutive years.
If you meet these requirements and you are registered in Utrecht, you should automatically receive a voting pass in the mail at the address you’re registered at.
Voting is possible on the 18th of March between 7.30 and 21.00 at any polling stations throughout the entire city. You can vote at any polling station in the city. The municipality website has an overview of all polling stations, which you can find here: Stembureaus in Utrecht.
When you go to the polling station, do not forget to bring both your voting pass and your ID or passport. These are crucial for being able to cast your ballot.
What are we voting for?
In the Netherlands there are a few different governing levels. The municipality is the most local level of government, usually covering one bigger city or multiple smaller cities. The municipality of Utrecht, for example, covers the entire city of Utrecht.
Municipalities are responsible for things like housing and determining where new houses will be built and whether they’ll be affordable or not; different social services such as youth care, benefits and support for people who don’t or can’t work, and homeless shelters; everything city planning related; and issuing permits for night clubs and terraces.
The municipal elections happen once every four years and determine which political parties and candidates will be representing us in the city council. The Utrecht city council has 45 seats and in total 20 different parties are running. The Netherlands uses proportional representation, meaning that a certain percentage of the votes translates to about the same percentage of the seats. Therefore, it’s very unlikely for one party to get the majority of the votes, therefore it’s common to form coalitions to form governing bodies rather than that one party forms a governing body by themselves. This also means that these parties have to make a lot of compromises to come to one collective vision for the city. Opposition parties on the other hand don’t have this restriction. Utrecht currently has 17 different parties in the city council, 5 of which are in the coalition.
What does your vote mean?
Dutch voting ballots are comically large. There’s a lot of different parties participating and each party can register up to 50 candidates (or even 80 for parties that got a lot of seats in the previous elections). All votes for all candidates on the list of one party contribute to votes for the party. So you can vote for anyone on our list to vote for BIJ1.
What does BIJ1 stand for and where is BIJ1 situated in the political climate of Utrecht?
BIJ1 stands for equal rights and equal opportunities for everyone. We are anticapitalist and intersectional and fight against discrimination of any kind. We are a relatively young political party and were first elected to the city council four years ago. BIJ1 formed out of a need for better representation for people from different marginalized communities, such as BIPOC people, working class people, queer people, people with disabilities and migrants. And a need for a radical leftist party that puts principles and leftist ideologies over popularity.
What is the political context of Utrecht?
Utrecht is a relatively leftwing city and has had centre-left coalitions for a number of terms. This makes a party like BIJ1 extra relevant, because leftwing coalition parties need leftwing opposition parties to make sure that the coalition parties don’t compromise too much on their leftist ideology.
