If students and employees at Erasmus University have their way, Alexander Pechtold of the social liberal party D66 will become the new Prime Minister on 15 March. In an EM poll his party, D66, attains the most votes by far. The conservative liberal party VVD lags behind considerably.
1,122 students and 126 employees participated in the online poll that ran from 2 – 9 March. Nearly half of the respondents already know for certain which candidate they will vote for; 30 percent already know which party, and 25 percent is still in doubt. Just a handful will cast a blank vote or will abstain. This insignificant amount may possibly be caused by the fact that people who are disinterested in the elections will be far less likely to fill in a questionnaire about it.
The result
D66 is the clear winner of the poll. The party comes out on top among both genders at EUR. Converted into seats, D66 would end up with at least 30 out of 150 seats in the national parliament. Moreover, the party can still win 20 seats among people considering voting for D66, but who are not fully certain yet. The VVD would be allowed to divide 25 seats, with a potential extra 12 seats from doubters (see the graphic for the other parties).
The division of seats on the basis of the poll is based on 1,248 respondents. The number of potential seats is based on respondents who were deliberating between two or more parties. The error margin does not exceed +/- 2 seats.
DENK wins at Hogeschool
Among male respondents, the party shares the lead with the VVD. Among women, the green party GroenLinks is somewhat more popular than the VVD. Compared to a poll among students at Hogeschool Rotterdam, the striking difference is the votes for migrant party DENK. This party is the clear leader at Rotterdam University, while at the EUR DENK attains a mere 2.2 percent (+/- 0.5 percent) of the votes, which comes down to between 2-3 seats.
Faculties also differ in political leaning. At the Rotterdam School of Management and the Erasmus School of Economics the VVD is the winner, although at the ESE D66 lies within the liberals’ error margin. The Erasmus School of Law, the iBMG and the Erasmus MC are D66 voters. The Faculty of Social Sciences, the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication and Philosophy together comprise a GroenLinks bulwark.
The number of votes among employees is not significant enough to forecast the result with much certainty, but what is clear is that GroenLinks and D66 score the best. Together they account for nearly half of the votes.
