The local elections are the most important elections of all. But who should you vote for on March 3? The country´s very own National Mental Coach Wim de Bie has helpfully written a column in the Volkskrant with some useful advice.

In my capacity as coach I regularly help people find their way to the voting booth. Lesson number one: know your city council executives. Are you planning to vote for one of the big parties? Then look closely at the plans that party’s execs might be hatching because these are the little men with the big power.
Stepped gables
Be especially wary of any city council exec in charge of housing. Are they the type who want to leave a ‘legacy’? A rejuvenated city centre perhaps, with superfluous office space, hugely expensive apartments and cute retro-houses with stepped gables?
Are they planning to erect the highest skyscraper in the eastern hemisphere on the edge of your local nature reserve? Are they presenting their plans in glossy brochures full of pr doubletalk and deceptive ‘this is how it will look’ pictures? Are they stressing that their hard work is to make life better for you, your children and grandchildren?
Take a look at the posters: are the execs wearing the sort of pinstripe suits and over 500 euro specs which make them the spitting image of the business types they all too frequently hobknob with at the gatherings of your council’s coteries of hotshots?

Short cuts
Do the executives organise public hearings to explain their megalomaniacal plans and do they assure angry residents that they will listen to them? Ten to one they sussed out the short cuts in the decision making process before they came and the plans will go ahead anyway.
Not long ago one property developer told a newspaper: Once all those angry people come to the opening with all those nice balloons and clowns they’ll be happy enough.

Pancakes
Now, as your Mental Coach, I am not allowed to tell you who to vote for. I can merely point the way. But if your answer to the above questions is ‘yes’ I seriously advise you to look out for another party to vote for, preferably one of the smaller ones, one with projects on ‘a human scale’.
Projects such as nicely designed public parks with tearooms and big places to sit out at, where pancakes and poffertjes are served which will only cost three euros because the council is paying for them too and where wheelchair-pushing volunteers will bring care home residents and where music schools and brass bands play concerts and everybody gets together to enjoy the sunset.
The local elections are the most important democratic elections. A small party could win it and change your neighbourhood into a fairytale garden.
Wim de Bie is the National Mental Coach 2010 (www.wimdebie.nl) and formerly part of the comedy duo Van Kooten & de Bie This is an unofficial translation