1981 Dutch general election

1981 Dutch general election

← 1977 26 May 1981 1982 →
All 150 seats in the House of Representatives 76 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	87.0% ( 1.1 pp)
Party Leader Vote % Seats +/– CDA Dries van Agt 30.8% 48 −1 PvdA Joop den Uyl 28.3% 44 −9 VVD Hans Wiegel 17.3% 26 −2 D66 Jan Terlouw 11.1% 17 +9 PSP Fred van der Spek 2.1% 3 +2 CPN Marcus Bakker 2.1% 3 +1 SGP Henk van Rossum 2.0% 3 0 PPR Ria Beckers 2.0% 3 0 RPF Meindert Leerling 1.2% 2 +2 GPV Gert Schutte 0.8% 1 0 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Most voted-for party by municipality Cabinet before Cabinet after First Van Agt cabinet CDA–VVD Second Van Agt cabinet CDA–PvdA–D66

General elections were held in the Netherlands on 26 May 1981.^[1][2] The Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) emerged as the largest party, winning 48 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives.^[3]

The incumbent Christian Democratic Appeal-People's Party for Freedom and Democracy coalition lost its overall majority leading to a new coalition being formed between the CDA, the Labour Party (PvdA) and Democrats 66, with the CDA's Dries van Agt continuing as Prime Minister. However due to disagreements between the CDA and PvdA on government spending the coalition collapsed after just a year, leading to fresh elections.