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In the early months of 2005, the Dutch government introduced a bill in parliament proposing to change the electoral system. From one of the world's most extreme systems of proportional representation, the electoral system was to be changed into a system in which 20 electoral districts would play a substantial role. Under this new mixed system, the voter would have two votes; one vote to determine the distribution of seats over political parties as in the current system; and a second vote, cast in 20 multi-member districts, to determine who will represent the political parties in parliament.
Like many stable Western democracies, the Netherlands have had stable electoral rules since a long time. The proportional system was introduced in 1917 and was only slightly changed in the nine decades that followed. The tide of change affecting many other democracies, however, seemed to touch the Netherlands as well. At least five equally well-established democracies fundamentally changed their electoral rules in the 1990s: Israel, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom (Wales and Scotland) and Italy, whereas some other established democracies adopted substantial changes (Norris, 2004). The Netherlands seemed to join the group of nations changing their electoral system.
The main aim of the bill proposed by the Dutch government was to strengthen the bond between individual members of parliament and voters. Under the existing system of proportional representation, most members of parliament were 'invisible' as they were elected on the coattail of the party leader. Although this aim was anything but new, it was boosted by the dramatic elections of 2002 and 2003. In 2002, the charismatic and flamboyant yet contested politician Pim Fortuyn attracted a large number of voters in the polls. And after he was shot just a few days before the elections his party won 26 out of 150 seats in the Second Chamber. Several well-established parties suffered severe losses. Their leaders were suddenly seen as representatives of 'old politics' and resigned. Although Pim Fortuyn's party more or less imploded within a few months after the elections of 2002 due to internal quarrels and lost most of its seats in the elections of 2003, its initial success was interpreted as a sign of a huge gap between traditional politics and the mass public. Electoral...