Anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders won a huge victory in Dutch elections, according to a near complete count of the vote early Thursday, in a stunning lurch to the far right for a nation once famed as a beacon of tolerance.
Quick Read
- Geert Wilders, a far-right anti-Islam populist, won a significant victory in the Dutch elections, with his Party for Freedom projected to secure 37 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament.
- This outcome, which exceeds previous predictions and more than doubles his party’s seats from the last election, marks a dramatic shift to the far right in the Netherlands, a country historically known for its tolerance.
- The victory is set to send ripples across Europe, where far-right ideologies are gaining momentum. Wilders is now poised to lead coalition formation talks, potentially positioning him to become the Netherlands’ first far-right prime minister.
- Wilders’ campaign platform focused on issues like migration, the cost-of-living crisis, and housing shortages. His policies include advocating for the Netherlands to exit the European Union, halting asylum-seekers, enforcing migrant pushbacks at borders, and promoting the “de-Islamization” of the Netherlands, including banning mosques and Islamic schools. However, he has toned down his rhetoric about Islam compared to previous campaigns.
- Forming a coalition government may prove challenging, as mainstream parties are generally reluctant to align with Wilders and his party. Nonetheless, the size of his electoral victory could strengthen his position in negotiations. Wilders has expressed his commitment to enacting policies “within the law and constitution.”
- The closest rival in the election was a center-left alliance between the Labor Party and Green Left, projected to win 25 seats. However, its leader, Frans Timmermans, has ruled out a coalition with Wilders’ party.
- This electoral outcome in the Netherlands is part of a broader trend in Europe, where populist and hard-right parties have seen varying levels of success in recent elections. The rise of figures like Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who congratulated Wilders, reflects a changing political landscape in the region.
The Associated Press has the story:
Dutch election winner Geert Wilders is an anti-Islam firebrand known as the Dutch Donald Trump
Newslooks- THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP)
Anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders won a huge victory in Dutch elections, according to a near complete count of the vote early Thursday, in a stunning lurch to the far right for a nation once famed as a beacon of tolerance.
The result will send shockwaves through Europe, where far-right ideology is on the rise, and puts Wilders in line to lead talks to form the next governing coalition and possibly become the first far-right prime minister of the Netherlands.
With nearly all votes counted, Wilders’ Party for Freedom was forecast to win 37 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament, two more than predicted by an exit poll when voting finished Wednesday night and more than double the 17 he won at the last election.
“I had to pinch my arm,” a jubilant Wilders said.
Political parties were set to hold separate meetings Thursday to discuss the outcome before what is likely to be an arduous process of forming a new governing coalition begins Friday.
Despite his harsh rhetoric, Wilders has already begun courting other right and center parties by saying in a victory speech that whatever policies he pushes will be “within the law and constitution.”
Wilders’ election program included calls for a referendum on the Netherlands leaving the European Union, a total halt to accepting asylum-seekers and migrant pushbacks at Dutch borders.
It also advocates the “de-Islamization” of the Netherlands. He says he wants no mosques or Islamic schools in the country, although he has been milder about Islam during this election campaign than in the past.
Instead, his victory seems based on his campaign to rein-in migration -— the issue that caused the last governing coalition to quit in July —- and tackle issues such as the cost-of-living crisis and housing shortages.
“Voters said, ‘We are sick of it. Sick to our stomachs,’” he said, adding he is now on a mission to end the “asylum tsunami,” referring to the migration issue that came to dominate his campaign.
“The Dutch will be No. 1 again,” Wilders said. “The people must get their nation back.”
But Wilders, who has in the past been labeled a Dutch version of Donald Trump, first must form a coalition government before he can take the reins of power.
That will be tough as mainstream parties are reluctant to join forces with him and his party, but the size of his victory strengthens his hand in any negotiations.
Wilders called on other parties to constructively engage in coalition talks. Pieter Omtzigt, a former centrist Christian Democrat who built his own New Social Contract party in three months to take 20 seats, said he would always be open to talks.
The closest party to Wilders’ in the election was an alliance of the center-left Labor Party and Green Left, which was forecast to win 25 seats. But its leader, Frans Timmermans, made clear that Wilders should not count on a coalition with him.
“We will never form a coalition with parties that pretend that asylum seekers are the source of all misery,” Timmermans said, vowing to defend Dutch democracy.
The historic victory came one year after the win of Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy’s roots were steeped in nostalgia for fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Meloni has since mellowed her stance on several issues and has become the acceptable face of the hard right in the EU.
Wilders was long a firebrand lashing out at Islam, at the EU and migrants -— a stance which brought him close to power but never in it, in a nation known for compromise politics.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who boasts of turning Hungary into an “illiberal” state and has similarly harsh stances on migration and EU institutions, was quick to congratulate Wilders. “The winds of change are here! Congratulations,” Orban said.
During the final weeks of his campaign, Wilders somewhat softened his stance and vowed that he would be a prime minister for all Dutch people, so much so that he gained the moniker Geert “Milders.”
The election was called after the fourth and final coalition of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte resigned in July after failing to agree to measures to rein-in migration.
Rutte was replaced by Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, a former refugee from Turkey who could have become the country’s first female prime minister had her party won the most votes. Instead, it was forecast to lose 10 seats to end up with 24.
The result is the latest in a series of elections that is altering the European political landscape. From Slovakia and Spain, to Germany and Poland, populist and hard-right parties triumphed in some EU member nations and faltered in others.
He’s been called the Dutch Donald Trump. He’s been threatened with death countless times by Islamic extremists, convicted of insulting Moroccans, and Britain once banned him from entering the country.
Now Geert Wilders has won a massive victory in a Dutch election and is in pole position to form the next governing coalition and possibly become the Netherlands’ next prime minister.
An exit poll revealing his landslide appeared to take even 60-year-old political veteran Wilders by surprise.
In his first reaction, posted in a video on X, formerly Twitter, he spread his arms wide, put his face in his hands and said simply “35!” — the number of seats an exit poll forecast his Party for Freedom, or PVV, won in the 150-seat lower house of parliament.
Wilders, with his fiery tongue has long been one of the Netherlands’ best-known lawmakers at home and abroad. His populist policies and shock of peroxide blond hair have drawn comparisons with Trump.
But, unlike Trump, he seemed destined to spend his life in political opposition.
The only time Wilders came close to governing was when he supported the first coalition formed by Prime Minister Mark Rutte in 2010. But Wilders did not formally join the minority administration and brought it down after just 18 months in office in a dispute over austerity measures. Since then, mainstream parties have shunned him.
They no longer can.
“The PVV wants to, from a fantastic position with 35 seats that can totally no longer be ignored by any party, cooperate with other parties,” he told cheering supporters at his election celebration in a small bar in a working class suburb of The Hague.
Whether he can piece together a stable coalition with former political foes remains to be seen.
As well as alienating mainstream politicians, his fiery anti-Islam rhetoric also has made him a target for extremists and led to him living under round-the-clock protection for years. He has appeared in court as a victim of death threats, vowing never to be silenced.
Voting Wednesday at The Hague City Hall, Wilders was flanked by burly security guards scanning the cavernous space for possible threats. He has moved from one safe house to another over nearly two decades.
In 2009, the British government refused to let him visit the country, saying he posed a threat to “community harmony and therefore public security.” Wilders had been invited to Britain by a member of Parliament’s upper house, the House of Lords, to show his 15-minute film “Fitna,” which criticizes the Quran as a “fascist book.” The film sparked violent protests around the Muslim world in 2008 for linking Quranic verses with footage of terrorist attacks.
To court mainstream voters this time around, Wilders toned down the anti-Islam rhetoric and sought to focus less on what he calls the “de-Islamization” of the Netherlands and more on tackling hot-button issues such as housing shortages, a cost-of-living crisis and access to good health care.
His campaign platform nonetheless calls for a referendum on the Netherlands leaving the European Union, an “asylum stop” and “no Islamic schools, Qurans and mosques,” although he pledged Wednesday night not to breach Dutch laws or the country’s constitution that enshrines freedom of religion and expression.
Wilders is set to become the longest-serving lawmaker in the Dutch parliament later this year. He has been a member of the House of Representatives since 1998, first for the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, where he mentored a young Rutte before quitting the party and setting up his Party for Freedom. He demonstrated a softer side Wednesday night by thanking his Hungarian-born wife Krisztina for her support.
He also is a staunch supporter of Israel and advocates shifting the Embassy of the Netherlands there to Jerusalem and closing the Dutch diplomatic post in Ramallah, home of the Palestinian Authority.
Wilders is known for his hardline politics, but also for his witty one-liners. And his pets. His two cats, Snoetje and Pluisje, have their own account on X, formerly Twitter, with nearly 23,000 followers.
