Below are short descriptions of the parties that, after the January 22nd, 2003 elections, currently make up the Dutch parliament.
CDA:
The CDA, which stands for Christen Democratisch Appèl (Christan Democratic Appeal), is the party that currently offers our prime minster, Jan-Peter Balkenende. The CDA had 44 seats in the 150-seat Lower House and therefore is the biggest party in Parliament. Its ideas are not really clear: it's not radically christian (eg. didn't plan to reverse gay-marriage), but values some christian tradition and is very much for the acquisition of norms and values. It is a little bit in the centre between conservatism and social-democracy. By the way Jaap De Hoop Scheffer, the NATO's secretary-general, is also from thsi party. Before he became NATO Secretary-General, he was our External Relations minister.
PvdA:
The Parrtij van de Arbeid (Labour Party), led by Wouter Bos, has 42 seats in the Lower House. It has tried to form a government with the CDA, which failed because of disagreements about the proposed retrenchments. Now it's along the opposition and has provided an alternative estimate to the severe one the government offered, but it wasn't passed. The PvdA's ideas are somewhat more social-democratic than those of the CDA.
VVD:
The VVD, an abbreviation of Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (People's Party for Liberty and Democracy), currently has 28 seats in the Lower House and governs together with the CDA en D66. It's quite a conservative party. Our Finance minister, Gerrit Zalm, is a VVD member. The left-wing parties call his ideas on retrenchment "the governing of the calculator", because he finds the elimination of the budget deficit to be very important. The VVD is pro Bush. It also wants to decrease the number of asylum seekers to come to our country, because they appear to have an integration problem.
SP:
The Socialist Party, led by ex-labourer Jan Marijnissen, mainly tries to defend the poorer people's rights. It for example is totally against the unlinking of wages and benefits (meaning benefits won't highten if wages do), and the change in the law protecting people who are too disabled to work (which meant that only 100% disabled people get benefits under this law). The SP was totally against the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq as well. The SP was one of the first parties to come up with the problem of immigrants not integrating well in our society. It wants to force them to take integration courses, but also wants to make free more money for such courses so that they are at least available. The SP has nine seats in the Lower House.
Groen Links:
Groen Links (Green Left-wing), led by Femke Halsema, is somewhat like the SP in that it fights for poorer people's rights and was against the war on Iraq. It is less definite in its defense of social security, but is very explicit in protecting the environment. It has eight seats in the Lower House.
List Pim Fortuyn:
Pim Fortuyn was an extremely right-wing politician whose most explicit idea was the elimination of asylum seekers in the Netherlands. At first, he was the leader of another party called Leefbaar Nederland, but he was kicked out in February of 2002 because he wanted to remove the law prohibiting discrimination out of the constitution. He promoted to close the Dutch borders for most refugees and wanted strict laws forcing immigrants to integrate. On May 6, 2002 Fortuyn was killed by an animal rights activist called Volkert van der Graaf. Fortuyn's party got 26 seats in the Lower House on the May 15, 2002 elections. However, when it governed two of its ministers fought and caused the government's colapse, so in the January 22, 2003 elections the party got only eight seats in the Lower House.
D66:
Democrats '66's main ideas involve governmental renewal, such as direct election of the prime minister and mayor and a constituency voting system as the U.S. has (but we don't). This year its main goal was to save money for education and "knowledge economy". D66 has six seats in the Lower House but still is on the government.
Christian Union:
The Christian Union's main opinion is a conservative policy, in which they're totally against abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage. They also want to defend poorer people's rights and rights of other social minorities. For instance, it together with the SP recently proposed a bill forcing universities and colleges to offer appropriate accommodation to disabled students. The Christian Union has three seats in the Lower House.
SGP:
The Staatkundig Geeformeerde Partij (Politically Dutch Reformed Party) is an extremely Christian party. It has some of the same ideas as the Chrstian Union, but is more radical. In this party women are not allowed to be a member. The SGP has two seats in the Lower House.
