The Party for the Animals (Dutch: Partij voor de Dieren, PvdD) is a political party in the Netherlands. Among its main goals are animal rights and animal welfare, though it claims not to be a single-issue party. The party does consider itself to be a testimonial party, which does not seek to gain political power, but only to testify to its beliefs.
Its chairwoman and political leader is Marianne Thieme.
At the moment the Party for the Animals holds 2 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives and 1 of the 75 seats in the Senate. In the House of Representatives Marianne Thieme and Esther Ouwehand represent the PvdD since November 30, 2006, whereas Niko Koffeman represents it in the Senate since June 12, 2007. The party's leading candidate for the 2009 European parliamentary election was Natasja Oerlemans, who failed to gain a seat.
Read more about Party For The Animals: History, Miscellaneous
Famous quotes containing the words party and/or animals:
“I never knew anyone yet who got up at six who did anything more useful between that time and breakfast than banging a tennis ball up against the side of the house, waiting for the more civilized members of the party to get up.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion.... Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat’s meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.”
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