General elections were held in the Netherlands on 22 November 2006, following the fall of the Second Balkenende cabinet. The election proved relatively successful for the governing Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) which remained the largest party with 41 seats, a loss of only three seats. The largest increase in seats was for the Socialist Party (SP), which went from nine to 25 seats. The main opposition party, the social democratic Labour Party (PvdA) lost nine of its 42 seats, while the right-liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the progressive liberal Democrats 66 lost a considerable portion of their seats, six of 28 and three of six, respectively. New parties, such as the right-wing Party for Freedom (PVV) of former VVD MP Geert Wilders and the animal rights party Party for the Animals (PvdD) were also successful, with the PVV winning nine seats and the PvdD winning two, thereby becoming the first animal rights group to enter a European parliament.Dutch animal rights party wins 2 seats in election, Reuters, 23 November 2006
The government formation talks led to the installation of the Christian-social fourth Balkenende cabinet, composed of the CDA, PvdA and the Christian Union on 22 February 2007. the fourth Balkenende cabinet remains the only cabinet between 1994 and 2025 with the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) not as part of the government.
Background Internal elections In the month before the fall of the cabinet, two parties held internal elections on who would lead their parties in the next election, which were scheduled for 2007. In the internal election of the conservative-liberal VVD, the more liberal State Secretary for Science and Higher education Mark Rutte beat the more conservative Minister without portfolio for Immigration and Integration Rita Verdonk. In the internal election of the progressive liberal D66 the more radical democratic minister without portfolio for government reform Alexander Pechtold beat the more social liberal chair of the parliamentary party Lousewies van der Laan.
Fall of the Cabinet The next general election was originally scheduled for 15 May 2007 as parliament was to be dissolved on 2 April 2007. However, it was announced that election would be held on 22 November 2006, as Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende offered the resignation of the cabinet on 30 June 2006 after one of the coalition partners, D66, withdrew its support from the cabinet the day before over Rita Verdonk's treatment of the Ayaan Hirsi Ali case. A new cabinet continued for five months as a caretaker government until the election. The opposition had pressed for an election as soon as possible because they were on a winning streak. The late date for the election probably worked to the advantage of the CDA because in those five months the economy improved and in the past the biggest coalition partner had always come out as the biggest party if the economy blooms. A major issue in the campaigns was whether this improving economy was because of or in spite of the right-wing government.
Splintered Fortuynists After the fall of the cabinet several new small right-wing and conservative parties announced that they would contest the general election. Most of these parties either emerged from the remains of Pim Fortuyn's populist Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) or split from the conservative liberal VVD, and were inspired by Fortuyn's ideas. In the period before the election the small right was characterized by a chaos of secessions, new formations and party switches. Former Rotterdam alderman Marco Pastors and member of parliament for the LPF Joost Eerdmans formed Eén NL which emulated Fortuyn's policies. The right-wing Party for the Netherlands was led by former LPF minister Hilbrand Nawijn. Former VVD MP Geert Wilders recruited people for his new Party for Freedom, which would take part in the 2006 election. Nawijn and Wilders had become independent in parliament at that time before the election, while Eerdmans has formed the "Group Eerdmans-Van Schijndel" along with former VVD MP Anton van Schijndel. Two other LPF politicians had formed one man fractions but they did not form their own party: Gerard van As, former leader of the LPF, and Gonny van Oudenallen, also former LPF. Margot Kraneveldt left the LPF, resigned her seat and joined the social democratic PvdA. Meanwhile, the LPF announced that it would also contest the next election under the name "List 5 Fortuyn". The party was led by Olaf Stuger, who served as member of parliament in the period 2002–2003 and returned to parliament in 2006 to replace Gerard van As.
Exodus of prominent politicians Several prominent politicians announced they would step down before the election. Some commentators spoke of a large exodus. Ter Braak, Bert, De grote uittocht? , Parlement.com, 25 August 2006 Within the liberal VVD former chair of the parliamentary party Jozias van Aartsen announced he would retire, as did his vice-chair Bibi de Vries, speaker of parliament Frans Weisglas, ministers Hans Hoogervorst, Sybilla Dekker, state secretary Melanie Schultz van Haegen and Henk van Hoof. Within the CDA, ministers Cees Veerman and Karla Peijs announced they would not return, as did state secretary Clemence Ross. Both D66's current chairperson Lousewies van der Laan and her predecessor Boris Dittrich also announced they would not return.
Turkish-Dutch candidates and the Armenian genocide On 26 September 2006 a candidate for the Labour Party, Erdinç Saçan, was removed by his party, because he would not hold to the party stance that the Armenian genocide was caused by the Young Turks. PvdA trekt kandidatuur Sacan in , NOS, 26 September 2006 That same evening, the CDA announced that two of their candidates, Ayhan Tonca and Osman Elmaci, have been removed as well, because of the same issue. Turkse CDA'ers weg om Armenië-rel NOS, 26 September 2006 Both parties agreed that all their members should openly conform to the party's point of view on this sensitive human rights issue. The sensitivity over these issues was underlined when the speaker of the Turkish parliament, Bülent Arınç, in response threatened the Netherlands with diplomatic action over this incident. Genocide: Turkije woedend op PvdA, CDA Elsevier, 29 September 2006 Namik Tan, spokesperson for the Turkish Department of Foreign Affairs said that "we are deeply worried about the one-sided approach of our ally Netherlands’ political parties on the so-called Armenian genocide as this puts a limit on the freedom of expression."Alleged Armenian genocide not a historical reality: Tan, NTVMSNBC, 28 September 2006 Labour Party leader Wouter Bos later said that the term genocide is used too easily, and that he rather speak of the "Armenian Question."
News of possible mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners in 2003 A week before the election, De Volkskrant newspaper published a story saying that Dutch soldiers had "tortured" Iraqi prisoners in Iraq back in 2003. Defence minister Henk Kamp ordered an immediate (re-)investigation into the matter, but said that earlier information about this case did not result in the military police and Dutch public prosecutors to start a criminal investigation. Left-wing parties, such as the Labour Party (PvdA), which demanded an immediate parliamentary investigation were later rebuked by military commander Dick Berlijn, who stated that the left-wing opposition tarnished the reputation of the Dutch Department of Defense by their incriminating language, while nothing happened in Iraq. Mark Rutte, leader of the VVD, said that this Iraq story was a manipulation in order to influence the election. In an open letter to De Volkskrant on the day of the Dutch election, defence minister Kamp said the news about possible mistreatment was deceptive, and that the editor of De Volkskrant should feel being misused by the sources for this story. The Department of Defense in the meantime is demanding a rectification of the story published by De Volkskrant.
In January 2007, the magazine Elsevier reported that the no.5 candidate of the Labour Party (PvdA), Ton Heerts, had "advised" De Volkskrant on how to report on the story.
Voting tools Several organisations launched a voting tool which helped voters to decide between the multitude of parties. The Institute for Public and Politics (IPP), a government agency, published VoteMatch. VoteMatch presented thirty propositions like "Citizens should elect the Prime Minister." and voters could show their support for these propositions by clicking either "agree", "don't agree" or "don't know". VoteMatch then showed to which extent the voter agreed with each party, showing them from most to least similarity in answers, advising the voter to vote for the party which agreed with them most. A translation can be found here VoteMatch had also been made for general, European, provincial and municipal elections since 1989.
Kieskompas (Electoral Compass) was launched by the newspaper Trouw in cooperation with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in order to compete with the Stemwijzer. This system was supposed to give considerably more information. Here voters could show their support for thirty six propositions on a five-point scale. Next they show whether they thought the current cabinet had performed well. Finally Kieskompas showed users their attitude towards party leaders as competent and trustworthy. The voters were shown a two-axis system (similar to a Nolan Chart) and their own position as well as the position of each party in this chart. It stated which party was the closest to them and which party the farthest. It also gave them the possibility to see which coalition best matched their political preferences.
Other voting tools where the "Wie Kies Jij?" (the "Who do You Vote for") of the IPP which helped find the perfect candidate by his/her age, sex, dietary habits and political experience and the Stomwijzer (the "Stupid Pointer") which mocked VoteMatch, but still gave reasonable voting advice
De Stemming 2006 Comedian Freek de Jonge performed an "election show" (verkiezingsconference) on public television on the night before the election. It was called "De Stemming 2006" (an ambiguous name which means both "The Vote 2006" and "The Mood 2006"). In his ironic comedy show, which was totally focused on the election, he ridiculed the candidates, making such a show a uniquely Dutch phenomenon. When asked whether this show would influence the upcoming election De Jonge stated he would make a fool out of everyone, not favouring a single person. This was the second time he did such a show. The first one was in 2003, when it was the thirty-third best watched TV programme in the Netherlands that year. This year, the show was watched by 2,016,000 viewers.
Campaign The main issue at stake during the election was the economic performance of the centre-right Second Balkenende cabinet, which consisted of the Christian democratic CDA, the conservative liberal VVD and the progressive liberal D66, as well as the composition of the new government and the future of the Dutch economy. Other issues were integration and the environment.
Power question The most important question of the election was which party would become the largest, the governing Christian democratic CDA or the main opposition party, the social democratic PvdA. This was similar to the situation of the 2003 general election. The largest party would have the initiative in the cabinet formation talks. Furthermore, if it became part of the cabinet, the largest party would supply the prime minister. The media framed the election as a "clash of the titans" between prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende (CDA) and candidate-prime minister Wouter Bos (PvdA).