The pond behind the Binnehof, the seat of the Dutch Parliament and the prime minister’s office, awoke yesterday as still as those appearing in the paintings of the Dutch Golden Age on display at the nearby Maurtishuis museum, but the image could not be more misleading regarding the electoral result that was brewing in the Netherlands.
According to the exit polls published at the close of the polling stations, the most voted party, by far, would be the far-right PVV (Partit per la Llibertat), a great triumph for its founder and undisputed leader , Geert Wilders, the most resilient of the leaders who have emerged in this electoral niche in the last two decades. The withdrawal of liberal leader Mark Rutte in July, after 13 years in power, would have created the necessary political space for the formation to obtain the best result in its history and even be the most voted party.
The PVV could have 35 seats, almost twice as many as it got in 2021 and the same as the VVD, Rutte’s party, got then (31); his replacement, the Minister of Justice, Dilan Yesilgöz, would have been left with only 23, therefore behind the alliance between the Social Democrats and the Greens, who this year have joined forces around a single candidate, Frans Timmermans , which would be in second place, according to the survey of the public channel NOS. “No one really expected it, I had a feeling of déjà vu with Brexit or Donald Trump”, summed up Leonie De Jonge, professor at the University of Groningen, specialist in the ultra-right.
With more than half of voters undecided up to 24 hours before the election, the PVV has only slipped in at the last minute among the parties with the option of finishing at the top of the polls, a shift that reinforced Timmermans’ message that it was necessary to group the progressive vote. For weeks, the election seemed to be limited to a battle between three parties: the Liberals, the Progressives and the new political star, Pieter Omtzigt, who would eventually come in fourth; his irruption with a powerful message of political regeneration probably deprived not only the Democratic Party, from which he came, of votes, but also the VDD.
Wilders’ victory puts the Netherlands in a unique situation. The country’s traditional political plurality forces the formation of coalition governments, and the rule is that the party with the most votes takes the initiative. The question is whether Wilders will find partners for the journey he is proposing to the Dutch to embark on.
“I will be the prime minister of all the Dutch, no matter where they come from”, he assured last night in an interview with public television in which he extended his hand to the VVD, the party of Omtzigt (New Social Contract) and the Moviment CamperolCiutadà (BBB, the party that has capitalized on the protest of the rural world) and “other parties” to govern. He promised to be “reasonable”: “We will not talk about mosques, the Koran or Islamic schools, but about our agenda of hope”, the asylum policy. “We want to govern, and with 35 seats we will do it”, promised the ultra-right leader, euphoric, in his appearance in front of his supporters.
The Dutch Parliament has 150 seats, so you need to add 76 to be able to govern. Although the liberal candidate, Yesilgöz, had opened the door to include the PVV among its coalition partners, on Tuesday night she reacted with skepticism to Wilders’ promise that he would be the prime minister “of all the Dutch, no matter who whatever its origin”, since his program talks, for example, about eliminating Islam from the Netherlands. Yesterday he merely pointed out that Wilders now has the initiative and it is up to him to show if he is able to weave a coalition. “We will never be part of a coalition that discriminates between the Dutch”, said, for his part, in an exemplary tone, Timmermans, who admitted that “democracy has spoken”.
In the Netherlands, campaigning is allowed until election day itself, and yesterday, in the center of The Hague, volunteers from all parties continued to hand out leaflets and ask for votes. For GroenLinks-PvdA, the alliance formed between the social democratic party and the environmentalists, the main argument in the hours before the elections was the strategic vote of the progressives. “It seems that there are many people who hesitate until the last minute and perhaps the prospect of having a prime minister from the extreme right can make them consider whether it would not be better to vote for the left”, explained Joos Artsen, a volunteer from 29 years
The good result of Timmermans’ list, which would obtain 25 seats, eight more than the two formations combined in the previous elections, indicates that the message sunk in among progressive voters, but not enough to stop the conservative tsunami that leads the ultra-right Wilders. In view of the polls, the far right also practiced strategic voting. The message of the PVV is of the utmost harshness towards immigrants, which it considers to be guilty of the lack of public housing in the Netherlands, an accusation that is not supported by the official figures at hand, but which has connected well with the concerns of many citizens, very critical of the asylum policy of the previous governments.
