ChristenUnie

ChristenUnie (Christians Union) is a new political party in the Netherlands. It combines a conservative point of view on ethical issues (such as abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage) with more left-wing, social democrat ideas on social-economic and environmental issues.

The party was formed in 2001 from the combination of two parties, the GPV and the RPF, which had fought the 1998 elections separately. Together the parties had 5 seats (GPV 2, RPF 3) out of 150 in the Dutch parliament before the 2002 elections. They were expected to make a light gain, getting to about 7 seats, but the opposite happened, and the ChristenUnie lost one seat to end up with 4.

The political leader was Kars Veling. After the 2002 elections it has been argued that this had been a bad choice, Vreling (it was argued) being someone who was good at keeping the peace internally in a party still somewhat divided amongst the old GPV-RPF line, but not someone who was a useful candidate for interesting the general population. Therefore a new political leader was appointed, Andre Rouvoet.

In the 2003 elections, the ChristenUnie lost another seat, keeping only 3, probably because supporters of the party voted CDA instead to make that party the largest.