With only a couple of weeks left before the 2022 municipal elections, both locals and international residents in Friesland are still trying to make up their minds about who to vote for.
While the process can sometimes be overwhelming, there are a few resources to help voters in the region, as reported by the Leeuwarder Courant. The website StemWijzer offers the chance to fill in a voting guide (in Dutch or Frisian), to figure out which party you are the closest to, according to respective positions on various key issues.
StemWijzer is available for seven Frisian municipalities:
MijnStem is another voting aid website, but at the moment it is only available for the municipality of Dantumadiel.
In addition, the Leeuwarder Courant is set on thoroughly covering the elections in the area. They will be publishing three columns per week until the elections on March 16th, each article covering in-depth one of the 18 Frisian municipalities.
So far, they have identified several issues that could influence voters in Friesland.
One example is the Lelylijn – a new (and controversial) railway project that could better connect Groningen and Friesland to the Randstad area via Herenveen and Drachten.
Sustainability and affordable housing are also going to be on the mind of voters when they decide on their new local representatives, so far most notably in Heereveen and Tysjkeradeil.
Finally, elections in the Netherlands’ smallest municipality – Schiermonnikoog – will probably be decided on the hot topic of traffic congestion and how to deal with it.
