The fundamentalist Protestant party SGP has named 46 women as candidates for the local elections in March, twice as many as at the last polls four years ago.

Women are standing for the SGP in nine municipalities for the first time, including Rotterdam, Deventer, Hardenberg and Stadskanaal.

In Vlissingen, eight of the 15 candidates are female, among them Lilian Janse, who failed last year in a bid to change the party’s rules so that women can stand for parliament.

The SGP was forced to lift its ban on women candidates in 2013 after losing a case at the European Court of Human Rights.

The party believes the Netherlands should be governed in accordance with Biblical teaching, which it says decrees that playing an active part in political life detracts from women’s domestic duties.

Altogether the SGP is standing in 101 of the 340 Dutch municipalities. Its vote is concentrated in the Bible Belt, a banana-shaped region running from Zeeland up to Urk in Flevoland.