The Netherlands seems to be moving firmly towards a government led by the far right. At least, that is what the main exit poll carried out after the elections held on November 22 in which 13.3 million Dutch people were able to exercise their right to vote pointed out on Wednesday night.
Geert Wilders, the candidate of the Party for Freedom (PVV), who proposes, among other things, holding a referendum to decide whether the Netherlands remains in the European Union or closing the mosques, led the survey carried out by Ipsos with 35 seats, at a great distance from his immediate pursuers: the social democrat Frans Timmermans (26 deputies) and the leader of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), Dilan Yesilgöz, of the liberal center-right and companion of the outgoing prime minister, Mark Rutte, which would have been third with 23 parliamentarians.
When the results of this poll became known, a euphoric Wilders proclaimed that his formation “can no longer be ignored.” “The Dutch have said that they are fed up, fed up to the point of nausea, and now they hope that the people can recover their nation and that we will manage to reduce the tsunami of asylum seekers and immigrants,” he claimed, according to AFP.
With these results, Wilders could be the next prime minister of the Netherlands in coalition with Yesilgöz and with the New Social Contract candidate, Pieter Omtzigt, a Christian Democrat, with 20 seats. Neither of them has refused to agree with the far-right after the elections. These three center-right and radical right formations would add 78 seats when the absolute majority in the Parliament of The Hague is 76.
The polls are not definitive, but on previous occasions in the country they have been close to the final result. As political scientist Julia Wouters assured the AFP agency before this poll was released, “anyone who says they know who is going to win the elections is lying; anything can happen.”
Everything indicates that Wilders’ end-of-campaign strategy has been a success. In the last week, the PVV leader had moderated his speech, even ensuring that his intention is not to impose the most radical points of his program as inexcusable conditions to agree on a coalition government. This same Wednesday he said when voting in The Hague that he wants to be the head of the Government “of all citizens, regardless of their religion, their origin or their sex,” Efe reports.
If these results are confirmed, Wilders at 54 years old will give a strong blow to Europe’s political board just seven months before the European elections. In his country, he also inflicts a very harsh punishment on the traditional right of the Popular Party for Freedom, which had been leading the Government for 13 years until last July.
Known as Mozart in his country for his characteristic long, silver hair, Wilders founded the PVV in 2006, a personalist group with initially very radical proposals. Until now, he proposed banning mosques, the use of the Islamic veil in public spaces or the Koran, which he compares to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Until shortly before this campaign, Wilders, a born provocateur, had cultivated radical Islamophobia and had even spoken of “Moroccan scum.” His outbursts and high-sounding statements earned him a court conviction in 2015 for insults and discrimination towards the country’s Muslim community.
The hatred distilled for so many years has turned against him so that Wilders now appears at all his public events surrounded by an army of bodyguards. Not in vain, he is the most threatened politician in Holland.
What is certain is that a negotiation period now opens in the Netherlands that could be long, as has happened on many occasions in the past. There has never been a Government with an absolute majority in The Hague in recent decades. Furthermore, it is normal for government coalitions to be closed between four or five different formations, as happened in 2021. After those last elections to the Lower House, Mark Rutte took 271 days to close a coalition of four parties that was later unable to conclude the legislature.
This Wednesday’s elections have been open until the last minute. This week’s polls showed a triple tie between the center-right candidate, the leader of the far-right and the head of the list of the left-wing coalition, the former vice president of the European Commission Frans Timmermans, who has risen in the final stretch because he has He has been the only one who has opted to isolate and reject any pact with the extreme right.
The Netherlands now puts an end to 13 years of governments led by Mark Rutte. The Dutch conservative was a history of the Councils of the European Union. In fact, he is one of the oldest leaders of the 27 after four consecutive terms. Known and feared by his European partners, Rutte on several occasions led the so-called frugal countries, which pushed to impose austerity policies on their southern neighbors, including Spain.
In addition to immigration, the other axes of the Dutch campaign have been the increasing cost of living and problems in accessing housing, especially among young people.
The campaign has been more tense than usual. Last Monday night, Thierry Baudet, leader of another far-right party, Forum for Democracy (FvD), was brutally attacked. Baudet was hit severely on the head with a beer bottle in a cafe in the north of the Netherlands during a campaign event.
