allied with SGP in many municipalities, but represented the winning part with 420 seats (SGP has always had a very steady following). Leader André Rouvoet now says that this alliance might no longer be a good idea because precisely there where SGP refused an alliance because CU had a woman in their list was where CU grew. SGP's attitude towards women brushes off badly on CU. In keeping with their left-wing Christian nature, ChristenUnie was most successful in a band across the Netherlands that starts in the south west and largely coincides with the Dutch Bible belt, but ends in the heavily socialist north east. As D66 focussed on local issues in their campaigns but suffered further losses, a common occurrence when the party participates in government. In 2005, D66 minister Alexander Pechtold had proposed moving the elections in some municipalities to different years in order to reduce the influence of national politics, but this was opposed by the CDA. Media attention before election day was manifested around Rotterdam, where the late Pim Fortuyn's Leefbaar Rotterdam was a surprise winner in 2002, knocking PvdA out of the coalition for the first time since WWII. But now, PvdA even gained more seats than they had before 2002, and became the largest party once again. Leefbaar Rotterdam came second and has already made clear it is not willing to enter a coalition with the Labour party, making the formation of a coalition difficult because all other parties are small (less than 10% of the votes). In these 419 municipalities, percentages of over 30% were reached almost only by PvdA (in 64 municipalities, mostly in the northern provinces, especially Groningen and Friesland) and CDA (59 times, mostly in southern provinces). Percentages over 40% were reached in 29 municipalities, again almost exclusively by PvdA (12) and CDA (10). Absolute majorities (over 50%), which would not require a coalition, are a rarity in a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation and occurred only twice. PvdA won an absolute majority in Winschoten, Groningen province with 49.7% of the votes and 9 out of 17 seats in the council, and CDA in Tubbergen, Overijssel province with 58.3% of the vote and 12 out of 19 seats in the council. Half the people have voted for the person at the top of the list. One third have voted for someone they met personally. The enormous rise of SP in