BIJ1


BIJ1 is a political party in the Netherlands. The party was founded in 2016 by Sylvana Simons, a television personality who was formerly connected to Denk. BIJ1 focuses on fighting racism and discrimination in the Netherlands.

History

Sylvana Simons joined DENK in 2016. DENK was founded by Tunahan Kuzu and Selçuk Öztürk, two former Labour MP's who split from the party after a major disagreement with immigration minister Lodewijk Asscher. However Simons left DENK in december 2016. The main reason being for her departure being the lack of support she felt from the party through a period of intense death threats. She also felt that DENK became more and more a conservative party, which had little interest in more progressive causes, such as LGBT rights.
Directly after her departure from DENK Simons founded her own party: Article 1 ''. This refers to the first article of the Dutch constitution, which prohibits discrimination and racism.

2017 Tweede Kamer election

On 15 march 2017 Article 1 contested the parliamentary election, with Simons as lijsttrekker, other prominent candidates for Article 1 were anthropologist Gloria Wekker and former Socialist Party senator Anja Meulenbelt. Article 1 failed to get enough signatures in the provinces of Friesland and Drenthe to get on the ballot.
Article 1 managed to gain 28,700 votes, missing the 0.67% threshold to get a seat in parliament. The party was mostly supported in municipalities with a large Afro-Dutch population, such as Amsterdam, Almere, Diemen and Rotterdam. The party also achieved a reasonable result in the Caribbean Netherlands. The party did poorly in more rural municipalities and cities with little or no immigrant population.

Name change

The party Article 1 was sued by anti-discrimination think tank Art.1 for trademark infringement. The judge's verdict was in favor of Art.1, and therefor Simons was forced to change the name of the party. On 29 october 2017 the new name was announced: BIJ1. BIJ1 refers to the Dutch word, which translates to Together.

Local elections 2018

The party only contested the Dutch local elections in march 2018 in Amsterdam. Sylvana Simons was again elected as lijsttrekker. During the campaign a candidate of the party got accused of lying about her résumé. She claimed to be a psychiatrist, although she could not produce the needed registration. She was eventually withdrawn as a candidate.
Despite this the party won 6,571 votes, just enough to win a seat on the city council. The best results for Bij1 were in Amsterdam-Zuidoost, especially in the Bijlmermeer, which is home to a large Suriname migrant population.

Ideology

The ideology of BIJ1 has two pillars: radical equality and economic justice. The party strives for the emancipation of the LGBT community, stronger anti-hate speech laws and an end to ethnic profiling. The party controversially calls for the abolishment of the Zwarte Piet tradition.
Economically the party calls for a single-payer healthcare system, the closing of the gender wage gap and replacing gross domestic product with the concept of gross national happiness as the dominant economic indicator.

Electoral results

Parliament

Local election