Socialist Party (Netherlands) - Definition and Overview

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The Socialist Party (Dutch: Socialistische Partij) is a socialist party in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1972 as a Maoist party (named KPN/ML, Communist Party of the Netherlands/Marxist-Leninist) but in 1991 formally abandoned Marxism-Leninism (in practice, it had already abandoned Marxist dogma long before). In 1994 it got its first members of parliament and in 1999 it had one member elected to the European Parliament, with another one in 2004. It is now the fourth largest political party in the Netherlands, counted by parliamentairy seats or party members. The party's leader is Jan Marijnissen.

For the 2003 elections, the SP rose up to 24 seats in the polls. Finally the SP didn't gain a seat at all from its 9 seats the year before, mainly because the left-wing Partij van de Arbeid (Pvda) came very close to the largest party, the Christen Democratisch Appel (CDA). Many potential SP-voters rather had a larger PvdA and a small SP than both medium-sized SP and PvdA, with far less seats than the CDA.

The Socialist Party's MEPs sits in the European United Left - Nordic Green Left group.

Number of seats in the Tweede Kamer, of the 150 total:

• 1994 - 2
• 1998 - 5
• 2002 - 9
• 2003 - 9 (In February 2004 the SP lost one seat when Ali Lazrak left the party).

External Link

Socialist Party web site in English (http://www.sp.nl/en/)