![\"Pedestrians](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0023654a-614.jpg\"\/)
\nPedestrians walk past a campaign poster of the president of the far-right Party for Freedom Geert Wilders<\/p>\n
Dutch voters appeared to have shunned far-right leader Geert Wilders in favour of a centrist party, exit polls have suggested, after a snap election watched closely in Europe where extremists are gaining ground.<\/p>\n
The centrist D66 party was projected to win 27 seats out of 150 in parliament, ahead of Mr Wilders and his far-right PVV Freedom Party with 25 seats, according to the Ipsos poll.<\/p>\n
Exit polls in the Netherlands generally provide an accurate reflection of the parliamentary make-up but the seats could change as actual votes are counted.<\/p>\n
The centre-right liberal VVD party was predicted to win 23 seats, with the left-wing Green\/Labour bloc expected to gain 20.<\/p>\n
If confirmed, the result would put D66 leader Rob Jetten, a 38-year-old pro-European, in pole position to become prime minister, subject to coalition talks.<\/p>\n
With far-right parties topping the polls in Britain, France, and Germany, the Dutch election was seen as a bellwether of the strength of the far right in Europe.<\/p>\n
\nPedestrians walk past a campaign poster of the president of the far-right Party for Freedom Geert Wilders<\/p>\n
If the exit poll results are accurate, the PVV lost 12 seats compared to its stunning 2023 election win.<\/p>\n
“The Dutch election really mirrors trends across Western Europe,” Sarah de Lange, Professor of Dutch Politics at Leiden University, told AFP before the exit poll.<\/p>\n
Whatever the result, the anti-Islam, anti-immigration Mr Wilders was virtually certain not to be prime minister, as all other parties had ruled out joining a coalition with him.<\/p>\n
The 62-year-old firebrand, sometimes known as the “Dutch Trump”, had collapsed the previous government, complaining progress was too slow to achieve “the strictest asylum policy ever”.<\/p>\n
When the result is finalised, there will be a prolonged period of haggling between the parties to see who wants to work with whom, a process that could take months.<\/p>\n
The fragmented Dutch political system means no party can reach the 76 seats needed to govern alone, so consensus and coalition-building are essential.<\/p>\n
“It will certainly take time for the Netherlands to reach stability and a new coalition,” De Lange told AFP.<\/p>\n
“The parties… are ideologically very, very diverse, which will make compromising very challenging.”<\/p>\n
‘Heart of Europe’<\/p>\n
Millions of Dutch people cast their votes in a variety of locations including zoos, football stadiums, and windmills.<\/p>\n
They had a bewildering range of 27 parties to choose from, meaning each voter had to grapple with a huge A3 sheet of paper containing the candidates.<\/p>\n
The main issues have been immigration and a housing crisis that especially affects young people in the densely populated country.<\/p>\n
But the other party leaders also ran on a pledge to return stability to the Dutch political scene after two years of chaos since Mr Wilders won the 2023 vote.<\/p>\n
Mr Jetten shot up the polls in the final days of the campaign thanks to the fresh-faced 38-year-old’s strong media performances.<\/p>\n
“I want to bring the Netherlands back to the heart of Europe because without European cooperation, we are nowhere,” he told AFP after casting his vote in The Hague.<\/p>\n
Frans Timmermans, an experienced former European Commission vice-president, touted himself as a safe pair of hands with strong environmental credentials.<\/p>\n
“This is one of the richest countries on the planet, and still, self-confidence is very low,” Timmermans, who heads the Green\/Labour left-wing alliance, told AFP in a pre-election interview.<\/p>\n
“We need to bring that back because there’s no issue that we can’t solve,” said Timmermans, 64, a former foreign minister who speaks six languages.<\/p>\n
‘Not that aggressive’ <\/p>\n
Violence and disinformation marred the campaign in the European Union’s fifth-largest economy and major global exporter.<\/p>\n
Demonstrators against shelters for asylum-seekers clashed with police in several cities, and violence erupted at an anti-immigration protest in The Hague last month.<\/p>\n
Mr Wilders was forced to apologise to Timmermans after two party members created AI-generated images to discredit the leftist leader.<\/p>\n
Until a new government is former, outgoing Prime Minister Dick Schoof will run the country – reluctantly. “I wouldn’t wish it on you,” he told one MP in parliament.<\/p>\n
“If you accept this job, you know that it will end someday,” Mr Schoof told AFP after casting his vote.<\/p>\n
Voters appeared to yearn for a return to less polarising politics.<\/p>\n
“I think society should be more positive and less negative,” Bart Paalman, a 53-year-old baker, told AFP, as cast his vote at the Anne Frank House, converted into a polling station for election day.<\/p>\n
“I’m voting for a party who’s not that aggressive.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dutch voters appeared to have shunned far-right leader Geert Wilders in favour of a centrist party, exit polls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-110964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}