1918 Dutch general election

1918 Dutch general election
Netherlands
← 1917 3 July 1918 1922 →
All 100 seats in the House of Representatives
51 seats needed for a majority
Party Leader Vote % Seats +/–
AB Willem Hubert Nolens 30.03 30 +6
SDAP Pieter Jelles Troelstra 21.95 22 +7
ARP Abraham Kuyper 13.43 13 +1
CHU Alexander de Savornin Lohman 6.56 7 −2
LU Eduard Ellis van Raalte [nl] 6.19 6 −15
VDB Henri Marchant 5.27 5 −3
BVL Alibert Cornelis Visser van IJzendoorn [nl] 3.80 4 −6
EB Willem Treub 3.11 3 New
SDP David Wijnkoop 2.31 2 New
MP Abraham Staalman [nl] 0.94 1 New
CDP Andries Staalman [nl] 0.79 1 New
PB Frederik Bos 0.68 1 New
SP Harm Kolthek 0.67 1 New
BCS Willy Kruyt 0.63 1 New
CSP Adolf Robbert van de Laar [nl] 0.61 1 New
NP Henri ter Hall [nl] 0.53 1 New
VDW Willem Wijk [nl] 0.51 1 New
This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Cabinet before Cabinet after
Cort van der Linden cabinet
Liberal		 First Ruijs de Beerenbrouck cabinet
AB–ARP–CHU
Part of the Politics series
Politics of the Netherlands
Azure, billetty Or a lion with a coronet Or armed and langued Gules holding in his dexter paw a sword Argent hilted Or and in the sinister paw seven arrows Argent pointed and bound together Or. [The seven arrows stand for the seven provinces of the Union of Utrecht.] The shield is crowned with the (Dutch) royal crown and supported by two lions Or armed and langued gules. They stand on a scroll Azure with the text (Or) "Je Maintiendrai" (French for "I will maintain".)
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General elections were held in the Netherlands on 3 July 1918.[1] They were the first elections held after a series of reforms that introduced universal male suffrage and pure proportional representation, replacing the previous two-round system in single member constituencies.[2] This change was known as the Pacification of 1917, which also included the introduction of state financing of religious schools, and led to the start of consociational democracy.[3]

The change in the electoral system led to major changes in the political makeup of the House of Representatives. The confessional right-wing parties, the General League of Roman Catholic Electoral Associations, the Anti-Revolutionary Party and the Christian Historical Union, together won 50 seats. Along with two Christian splinter parties (the Christian Democratic Party and the Christian Social Party) they were able to gain a majority of 52 seats.

The liberal parties lost the most seats. While in 1917, two of the liberal parties, the Liberal Union and the League of Free Liberals, had won 31 seats, they were now reduced to 10 seats. Together with three smaller liberal parties, liberals now held only 15 seats in the House of representatives.

The fragmentation of the House was caused by the low electoral threshold of just 0.5%, with the smallest party, the Alliance for the Democratisation of the Army, managing to win a seat with only 6,828 votes.

The elections were the first in which Dutch women could stand for election, despite still not being allowed to vote. Suze Groeneweg was elected as the first female member of the House of Representatives.[4]

  1. ^ Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1395 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
  2. ^ Nohlen & Stöver, pp1384-1385
  3. ^ Nohlen & Stöver, p1385
  4. ^ "Dit waren de eerste zeven vrouwen die het schopten tot Tweede Kamerlid | Kennis". 25 July 2018.