Campaign trail: animal rights, second class citizens and Zandvoort

A week tomorrow the Netherlands goes to the polls to elect 150 members of the lower house of parliament. Here’s a round up of the latest campaign news.

Animal home

Geert Wilder’s planned visit to an animal refugee in Zaandam has been cancelled. Refuge chairwoman Lousie Verra told local website De Orkaan that counter-demonstrations were being planned and there was ‘a lot of negative attention’ on social media.

‘We were afraid the safety of our people and our animals would be affected,’ she said.

De Orkaan said the visit had been organised by local police chief Anouk Duijnker, who coordinates a special team of ‘animal cops‘, and PVV animal welfare campaigner Dion Graus.

Second class citizens

Socialist party leader Emile Roemer has told broadcaster NOS that he favours abolishing first class carriages on Dutch trains. ‘I’m often in the train and rush hour and it is a real squash,’ Roemer said.

By abolishing first class, the NS could spend more money on investing in better services, Roemer said. He also thinks bus services should be free and public transport costs cut across the board.

Zandvoort gets it wrong

Zandvoort town council has made quite a mess of the dates on the election papers printed for local residents. The document is dated 17 March 2017, instead of 15 March and further down is dated more bizarrely, 17 March 2015.

Officials have placed a correction on the website and say they hope that they have done enough to get the proper date across.