THE HAGUE - Four weeks before the parliamentary election on November 22, the NSC, VVD, and GroenLinks-PvdA are still set to basically tie as the three largest parties, according to the Peilingwijzer - a weighted average of the latest polls by I&O Research and Ipsos/EenVandaag made by political scientist Tom Louwerse. 

The VVD stands at between 25 and 29 seats, Pieter Omtzigt’s NSC between 23 and 29, and the left-wing combination GroenLinks-PvdA between 21 and 25 seats. But the differences are so minor, and within I&O Research’s margin of error, that one can still speak of three parties on more or less equal footing, Louwerse told NOS. 

Behind the top three are the PVV on 16 to 20 seats and BBB on 10 to 14. The BBB is the big loser of Omtzigt’s decision to start his own party. All the other parties have well below 10 seats - PvdD comes the closest to double digits with between 6 and 8 seats. 

Coalition parties D66 and CDA both stand to lose hard this election, currently at 6 to 10 and 3 to 5 seats, respectively. For the D66, that would be a loss of about 16 seats compared to the March 2021 parliamentary election. 

Omtzigt’s new party caused a political earthquake at the end of August, but since then, there have been few shifts, Louwerse said. The violence between Israel and Hamas has also not changed the political picture in any meaningful way.