In the 419 municipalities of the March elections the 8861 seats were filled as follows Although the above shows the total results for the whole of the Netherlands, this has no official effect on national politics.
This is fairly similar to the election results and a confirmation of polls showing a possible majority for the three left-wing parties, which would be a first in the Netherlands and may be a reaction to what they call the present 'right-wing winter'.
In keeping with their left-wing Christian nature, the CU was most successful in a band across the Netherlands that starts in the south west and largely coincides with the Bible Belt, but ends in the heavily socialist north east.
As D66 focussed on local issues in its campaigns but suffered further losses, a common occurrence when the party participates in government.
In 2005, D66 minister Alexander Pechtold had proposed moving the elections in some municipalities to different years in order to reduce the influence of national politics, but this was opposed by the CDA.
Absolute majorities (over 50%), which would not require a coalition, are a rarity in a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation and occurred only twice.
The enormous rise of SP in some municipalities presented several candidates with a problem because they have to take a seat in the council but could not combine it with their 'normal' jobs.
In 2006, people mentioned employment, poverty, traffic, housing and education, largely the issues that left-wing parties focused on.
The issues of immigrant integration and safety, which had been important in 2002 and had led to the success of the Leefbaar parties, played a minor role this time.
The biggest shift among lower incomes was from the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) to the Socialist Party (SP), probably caused by the first two issues.
A likely candidate to succeed van Aartsen as political leader is Mark Rutte, the current staatssecretaris for higher education and science.
For the Christian Democratic Appeal an important part of the campaign was that regional and national politics are two separate things.
For this reason, prime minister Balkenende did not participate (much) in the campaign and declared after the elections that the CDA would not change its national policy.
D66 parliamentary leader Lousewies van der Laan remarked that this was the tenth election in a row (over 12 years) that D66 lost seats and that this time they would not seek the cause in external factors but within the party itself.
In Goes, the Christian parties CDA and SGP/CU formed a coalition with VVD on the day after the elections ("at record breaking speed"), without consulting the PvdA.
The new opposition demonstratively left the city hall after the inauguration and a VVD member almost attacked a protester.