Angry voters cause a political earthquake

In the Netherlands, the dramatic defeat of the governing coalition in the provincial elections has triggered a political earthquake. The four parties in Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s centre-right coalition not only lost significantly in the country’s 12 provinces, but also in the first chamber of the national parliament, comparable to the German Bundesrat. According to Thursday’s projections, they will only hold just under a third of the mandates there – they ended up far from the majority required for legislative decisions.