While in Ireland we will be celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day at home for the second consecutive year, the Dutch electorate will head to the polls. Let’s have a look at who the main parties are;
VVD (People’s Party for freedom and democracy):
The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy is a conservative-liberal political party in the Netherlands. The VVD supports private enterprise and economic liberalism. Mark Rutte has been the VVD leader since 31 May 2006 and on 14 October 2010 became Prime Minister of the Netherlands.
PPV (Party of Freedom):
The Party for Freedom is a nationalist, right-wing populist political party in the Netherlands.
Christian democratic appeal (CDA):
The Christian Democratic Appeal is a Christian-democratic political party in the Netherlands. It was originally formed in 1977 from a confederation of the Catholic People's Party, the Anti-Revolutionary Party and the Christian Historical Union, since becoming a unitary party and it has participated in all but three cabinets since it's amalgamation . Hugo de Jonge served as Leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal from July 2020 until his resignation in December.
Democrats 66:
Democrats 66 are a social-liberal political party in the Netherlands. ‘66’ originates from the year in which it was founded. The party was formed in 1966 by a group of politically unaligned young intellectuals. The party's main objective is to democratise the political system. In the 1967 general election, the party won 7 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives which was a significant acomplishment.
Groenlinks:
GroenLinks has been fighting for an inclusive society for 30 years in which they show solidarity with each other and with the next generations. They have ambitions of an: ‘An honest Netherlands in which we tackle the climate crisis and ensure a strong public sector’ according to their website.
The Socialist Party (Netherlands):
The Socialist Party, founded as the Communist Party of the Netherlands/Marxist–Leninist is a left-wing, democratic socialist political party in the Netherlands. After the 2006 general election, the Socialist Party (SP) became one of the major parties of the Netherlands with 25 seats of 150, an increase of 16 seats.
Labour (PvdA)
Since last general elections in 2017, the PvdA has 9 members (out of 150) in parliament. After four years of governing, the PvdA is now in opposition.The composition of the Senate is based on the election results of the Provincial Councils. In this body the PvdA has 8 out of 75 seats. Since the European elections in 2014, the PvdA has three members in the European Parliament, where they are part of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.
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If you want to look at the main parties in NL, you cannot exclude Labour (PvdA). Yet you wrote a long 3 paragraph section about the SP, a party that has alway remained marginal in national politics (for a long time of its own volition). Also there is a long time rivalry between the SP and PvdA, which is why it is even more surprising to me that you decided to leave the PvdA out of this overview (having lost 29 seats last election is enormous, but PvdA is polling higher than both SP and GroenLinks). It gives me inklings of suspicion of bias on the author's side towards the SP.