Geert Wilders is almost certain to be shut out of the next Dutch government after a knife-edge general election in which support for his far-right Freedom party (PVV) slumped and the liberal-progressive D66 party made spectacular gains.<\/p>\n
With more than 98% of votes counted from Wednesday\u2019s election<\/a>, the two parties were neck and neck on a projected 26 seats each in the Netherlands\u2019 150-seat parliament, with the difference between them only a couple of thousand votes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve shown not only to the Netherlands<\/a>, but also to the world that it is possible to beat populist and extreme-right movements,\u201d D66\u2019s 38-year-old leader, Rob Jetten, told supporters.<\/p>\n The outcome was a big setback for Wilders, however, whose PVV won 37 seats in 2023 then led a splintered and unproductive rightwing coalition that lasted less than a year before he brought it down in a row over his draconian immigration plans.<\/p>\n All major mainstream parties have since ruled out governing with the anti-Islam firebrand, who nonetheless insisted on Thursday that he should take the lead in forming a new government if the PVV ultimately emerged with the most votes.<\/p>\n \u201cAs long as there\u2019s no 100% clarity on this, no D66 scout can get started,\u201d he posted on social media, referring to the official traditionally appointed by the biggest party to sound out possible coalitions. \u201cWe will do everything we can to prevent this.\u201d<\/p>\n An estimated 90,000 votes from Dutch nationals living abroad may not be fully counted until Monday, election officials have said. Even if his party does finish first, however, Wilders appears to have no viable path to a majority.<\/p>\n The nail-biting finish is likely to lead to delays in coalition talks. Jetten also said on Thursday that he thought the largest party should \u201chave the initiative\u201d in starting talks, adding that results suggested it would be hard for Wilders to reach a majority.<\/p>\n Geert Wilders faces defeat in the parliamentary elections despite his party matching the number of seats of Rob Jetten\u2019s centrist party. Photograph: Sem van der Wal\/ANP\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Exit polls on Wednesday evening had predicted a narrow two-seat victory for the centrist D66, with Wilders\u2019 party trailing in second place. But vote counting later indicated a slightly stronger showing for the PVV than initially forecast.<\/p>\n The result remains a momentous win for D66, a 60-year-old pro-European party with liberal economic views but a progressive stance on most social issues, whose biggest previous seat tally was 24 and which had nine just seats in the outgoing parliament.<\/p>\n Jetten, a former climate minister who is in line to become the country\u2019s first out gay prime minister, said on Wednesday that political leaders needed to seek common ground to form a \u201cstable and ambitious\u201d new cabinet, a process that can often take months.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to This is Europe<\/p>\n The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans \u2013 from identity to economics to the environment<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sarah de Lange, of the University of Leiden, said D66 had been boosted by its \u201cpositive, hopeful, can-do campaign, which all our research shows voters prefer to negativity\u201d, and by voters wanting to \u201csignal their desire for a stable, centrist coalition\u201d.<\/p>\n Leonie de Jonge, of the University of T\u00fcbingen, said D66 was helped by its ability to appeal to both centre-left and centre-right voters, and by Jetten himself, who was \u201cthe anti-Wilders\u201d, appreciated for his \u201cpositive, calm and constructive\u201d message.<\/p>\n Under the proportional Dutch system, 0.67% of the vote yields one MP, a bar that was cleared by 15 of the 27 parties contesting the election. No single party ever wins a majority, and the country has been governed by coalitions for more than a century.<\/p>\n Analysts suggested that the most likely constellation for the next government would be a broad D66-led coalition including the night\u2019s other big winners, the Christian Democrat CDA, plus the liberal-conservative VVD and the centre-left GL\/PvdA.<\/p>\n The CDA, who under their youthful leader, Henri Bontenbal, also campaigned for a return to \u201cdecent\u201d, \u201cresponsible\u201d, \u201crespectful and on-topic\u201d politics after the most extreme government in recent Dutch history, nearly quadrupled its seat tally to 18.<\/p>\n The VVD, which \u2013 like the other three members of the chaotic PVV-led cabinet \u2013 had fallen sharply in the polls before the vote, in the end managed to salvage a respectable result, finishing third on 22 seats, only two down on its previous tally.<\/p>\n The party, long led by the former prime minister Mark Rutte, is now headed by a former refugee from Turkey, Dilan Ye\u015filg\u00f6z-Zegerius, whose future as party leader appeared in doubt before the vote but can now hope to be part of a centre-right government.<\/p>\n The GL\/PvdA, however, suffered a disappointing night, tumbling from 25 seats to 20. The party\u2019s leader, Frans Timmermans, a former European Commission vice-president, said he was quitting Dutch politics.<\/p>\n That broad D66-led coalition would have 86 seats, a majority of 10. An alternative formation \u2013 more rightwing alliance of D66, VVD, CDA and JA21, a radical right spin-off from the PVV \u2013 had earlier appeared possible but would have only 75 seats, one short of a majority.<\/p>\n However, analysts said it could take a long time to negotiate, with the conservative VVV in particular having long insisted it would not govern with the centre-left GL\/PvdA. \u201cTimmermans\u2019 departure may make that easier,\u201d de Lange said.<\/p>\n Wilders\u2019 setback did not mark a defeat for far-right populism in the Netherlands, cautioned de Jonge, noting that two other far-right parties, Forum for Democracy (FvD) and JA21, had made significant gains.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not peak populism,\u201d she said. \u201cAs a bloc, the far right gained one seat.\u201d With trust in politicians at an all-time low, the next government faced a \u201chell of a job to pick up the pieces\u201d and meet major challenges such as housing, climate change and migration, de Jonge said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Geert Wilders is almost certain to be shut out of the next Dutch government after a knife-edge general…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-234038","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\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}