Party for the Animals

Party for the Animals Partij voor de Dieren
Leader	Marianne Thieme
Chairman	Luuk Folkerts
Leader in the Senate	Niko Koffeman
Leader in the House of Representatives	Marianne Thieme
Founded	October 2002
Youth wing	PINK!
Thinktank	Nicolaas G. Pierson foundation
Ideology	Green politics[1] Animal rights/Animal welfare
Political position	Centre-left
Official colours	Green and Yellow
Seats in the Senate
Seats in the House of Representatives
Website
www.partijvoordedieren.nl
Politics of the Netherlands Political parties Elections

The Party for the Animals (Dutch: Partij voor de Dieren, "PvdD") is a political party in the Netherlands. Among its main goals are animal rights and animal welfare, though it claims not to be a single-issue party. The party does consider itself to be a testimonial party, which does not seek to gain political power, but only to testify to its beliefs.^[2]

Its chairwoman and political leader is Marianne Thieme.

At the moment the Party for the Animals holds 2 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives and 1 of the 75 seats in the Senate. In the House of Representatives Marianne Thieme and Esther Ouwehand represent the PvdD since November 30, 2006, whereas Niko Koffeman represents it in the Senate since June 12, 2007. The party's leading candidate for the 2009 European parliamentary election was Natasja Oerlemans, who failed to gain a seat.

History

The Party for the Animals was founded in October 2002 by among others Marianne Thieme.

In the Dutch general election of 2003 it gained 50,000 votes (0.5%), but not a seat in the House of Representatives.

In the February 2004 European Parliament election the party gained 153,000 votes (3.2%), three times as much as in the 2002 Dutch general election. Still the number of votes was not enough to obtain a seat in the European Parliament.

During the 2006 November 22 parliamentary elections it gained 179,988 votes (1.8%), enough for two seats in Dutch parliament.

In the run-up to these elections the party was supported by several Dutch celebrities, such as writers Maarten 't Hart and Jan Wolkers.

Present

In its first municipal council elections the party in 2010 gained one seat in every of the five places, where it participated.

In its third parliamentary elections, on June 9 in 2010, the PvdD retained its two seats in the House of Representatives.

Miscellaneous

The "PvdD" is the first political party in the world to gain parliamentary seats with an agenda focused primarily on animal rights.

One of the results that the PvdD claims to have reached during her first four year parliamentory period is the fact that the government has declared that reduction of national meat consumption further on is one of its priorities. ^[3]

The Party for Animals welcomed its 10,000th member in late 2009.

See also

• List of animal advocacy parties

External links

• Official international website

References

1. ^ "Parties and Elections in Europe". http://www.parties-and-elections.de/netherlands.html. 
2. ^ "Partij voor de Dieren - Weblog - Woensdag 4 oktober 2006". http://www.partijvoordedieren.nl/content/view/126//weblog/view/69/Marianne_Thieme. 
3. ^ [1] "Nu.nl/interview"