The Netherlands’ ruling liberal conservatives of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte declared Friday they would be ready to govern alongside Geert Wilders’ far right movement after an early general election in November.
Dutch voters will elect a new parliament on November 22 after last week’s collapse of Rutte’s four-party coalition led by his centre-right VVD over a bitter argument about asylum seeker policy.
He said last month he would quit politics altogether after 13 years at the helm which made him his country’s longest-serving prime minister.
Rutte told a reporter Friday he could confirm declarations by incoming VVD head Dilan Yesilgoz to the ANP news agency that the party was not ruling out Wilders’ populist nationalist Party for Freedom being included in a coalition.
“Yes, I completely agree,” said Rutte laconically when pressed on the issue as Yesilgoz, Turkish-born outgoing justice minister, prepares to lead the VVD into the poll.
Wilders dubbed the development “good news” in a post to X, formerly Twitter, as Dutch voters go to the polls some 15 months earlier than scheduled.
Yesilgoz came to the Netherlands as a refugee via Greece as a child and obtained asylum – her trade unionist father had arrived earlier following a 1980 coup in Turkey.
She will look to head a new administration with the immigration issue having split the coalition after government plans to cut the number of family members from war zones allowed to reunite with asylum-seeker relatives in the Netherlands.
Rutte’s government imploded after the policy highlighted what he conceded were “insurmountable” differences between coalition partners.
Rutte, nicknamed “Teflon Mark” for his ability to survive political scandals, first took office at the head of a minority government in 2010, benefiting from an initial confidence and supply accord with Wilders’ PVV party.
Wilders’ withdrawal of support two years later brought that government down and led to early elections.
This year’s poll will see the established parties also face a challenge from the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), seeking to shake up the system.
The BBB, formed after months of rowdy rallies against plans to cut livestock numbers for environmental reasons, won senate elections earlier this year.
https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/dutch-ruling-conservatives-say-ready-govern-far-right.1050142