I just voted in the municipal elections in The Netherlands, in total I cast 4 votes; I voted by proxy for Ronald and for myself. The elections were for the council of the city of Amsterdam and a separate council for the city center. In all cases I voted for the VVD (liberal comes closest to that, with liberal in its traditional meaning).
My main raison for voting the way I did is that I think it is about time the power or the Pvda (Labour) in my city is broken. They have been in power for as long as I can remember and it shows; nothing in the city is the way it should be; projects take forever and a day to be finished and they all go over budget in such a bad way that they might as well just have given the keys to the coffers of the city to the developers.
Some fine examples of this; building of a single metro line decided upon in 1997, started in 2003, work disrupts traffic in pretty much all of the inner city since then. Digging of the tunnels is about to start and foreseen completion is in 2017 at a cost of (everybody hopes) €2bn. The line is about 10km, less than half of which underground. It was supposed to be operative next year at a cost of €1.46bn.
Renovation of the Rijksmuseum, only one of the most important museums in Amsterdam and an important reason why tourists come to this city at all. This also started in 2003, and deo volente in 2013 we may again walk in its halls to see the old masters. Which is 5 years later than planned in 2003. How much this project costs is everybody's guess as the project is so confusing that nobody really knows what the bigger picture is. Anywhere between €250 and half a billion is my best guess.