Today is election day in The Netherlands, but not nationwide. The country votes for the province today. Isola, Lana and Jesse did some field research to find out how people think about the upcoming election, why they vote and the things they find important. An interview with the leader of Groenlinks: Anouk Gielen with her view at the elections and the opinion from different people on the street will be shown. But also, an infographic to give you clarity about the most important topics.
“People of Amsterdam believe in a greener, a fairer society”
Four years after the last provincial election, this Wednesday, March 15, 2023, it is time to vote. The young “Amsterdammer”, 23-year-old, Anouk Gielen, first a member of the provincial states of Noord-Holland and since June 2022 at the head of the group GroenLinks of that same province, intends to take her party to the summit.
As the leader of the «Green» party, their promise is to make Amsterdam a more progressive, more sustainable city, and more responsive to the needs of the inhabitants. And she agreed to answer our questions:
Jesse: Why are these elections so important for your party?
Anouk Gielen: “Because the province rules about very important topics, especially for the younger generation; such like climate, but also the nitrogen crisis, where are we able to build houses, if there’s enough buses around, … These are topics that have a real impact on our day-to-day life and that’s why these elections are such important.”
J: Why is your party so big in Amsterdam?
AG: “People of Amsterdam believe in a greener, a fairer society, it’s a very creative city. A lot of “Amsterdammers” have a feeling of art and culture, it’s also really important for GroenLinks, but also the impact of the housing crisis, for example, here in the city.”
J: What are your specific party plans, for the future?
AG: “For us, fixing the climate crisis is the number one priority. Us, as the province of Noord-Holland, need to do a lot more to make our climate goals. But also, as I said, affordable housing must be a very big priority, because we see that a lot of young people especially, can’t find a house right now, older people are living in a really big house, want to move but they can’t, because the market is totally overwhelmed. So, those both points are our priority as GroenLinks party.
A vote for us is a vote for the climate, for more nature, affordable housing and these are all issues that the people of Amsterdam care about highly.”
J: What do you think of the rise of BBB, how is it possible that BBB grew in such a short time?
AG: “There’s a lot of farmers that are disappointed in the government and I think they are right. We’ve seen that parties like VVD have pushed and pushed the measures that are necessary and farmers, therefore, have a lot of uncertainty right now and the BBB for them seems to be a solution to that problem. But I think it really isn’t, because they really try to ignore the problem, as well whereas we need to take measurements right now and we need to fix the problem and therefore give certainty to the farmers, so that they can build their future as well.”
How do you look about working together with PvDA party?
Our collaboration with PvDA is very good, me and the leader of the other party know each other from school, and we followed the same courses. Even though we like working together, we will stay separate parties, also after the election. There is no need to combine both parties and become bigger because in Noord-Holland both parties already are big.
VOXPOP:
In this voxpop we are figuring out what people keep in mind and what they think is important when they decide on which party they are going to vote for. In addition, we also find out if most of them are voting for the same party for the last years or if they switched and why.
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