And the winners are...

... from the top, Jan Marijnissen, Geert Wilders, and our very own "Harry Potter", Jan-Peter Balkenende. Don't be too worried if you have never seen any of these lovely specimens, let alone even heard of them - they are all Dutch politicians ;-)

We had a general election here yesterday for the Tweede Kamer (the equivilent of the House of Reps - I think!) and these 3 appear to be the big winners. Jan Marijnissen is the leader of the SP (Socialistiche Partij) and they made huge gains, winning 26 seats, up from 9. They also have the best logo, featuring a big red tomato that they "throw" at all the other parties!! The freakadelic looking Geert Wilders is the leader of his own party, Partij Voor De Vrijheid, and basically their platform is based on the anti Islamicisation of NL - they won 9 seats with that idea (amongst others!), and last but not least is Harry Potter, oops I mean Jan-Peter Balkenende, the leader of the CDA (Christen Democratisch Appel) who have maintained their position as the biggest party in the parliament with 41 seats of the total 150.

Now the fun starts! No one has a big enough majority so some sort of coalition has to be formed. As far as I can tell, that is going to be a pretty complicated process considering the differences in political platforms and ideologies of these groups. Can't imagine a mid to right wing party like the CDA getting into bed with the Socialists, and NOBODY wants to get into bed with Geert Wilders and his group of crazies - an interesting few weeks/months coming up!

Alli xxx