Armenians win in Dutch local elections
Three Armenians have won seats in different municipal councils in the Netherlands out of the 13 candidates took part in the recently held local government elections.
The community has, overall, a 25% success in the polls conducted on March 21, says Masis Abrahamyan, the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of the Netherlands.Speaking to Tert.am, he said that despite the local governments’ limited power (covering only the urban and rural communities’ management without any influence on more global political decision-making processes), they consider the Armenians’ success really very promising.
“Given that the Netherlands is a truly democratic country governed by rule of law, any sphere of political activity here has its great significance.
For the Armenians, it is very important to have their members in the councils of elders. That first of all bears testimony to the ethnic minorities’ engagement [in different processes] and is, by and large, considered positive for the civil society,” he told Tert.am.
Abrahamyan said he also sees additional guarantees allowing them to pursue national interests on the community level. But he admitted that the general population in the country enjoys a sufficiently high-level protection, with the Armenians not needing further leverages to seek any special government support.
“Also, local elections are an important platform allowing for progress, and participation in country-level policymaking. So the chances that we may have Armenian members in the Dutch parliament are absolutely realistic at the moment,” he added.