On Thursday morning, the Dutch—and indeed, the European—Left woke up to a healthy dose of reality check from democracy. The Dutch people forcefully gave their support to a party and a man who had been demonized for nearly two decades as an extreme-right, populist Islamophobe who had no place in the country’s political scene.
It seems, however, that the divide between the people’s will and the arrogance of the establishment was never greater, as evidenced by last night’s landslide results. Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom (PVV) now have an almost unprecedented democratic legitimacy to chart a different course for the Netherlands.
The question of whether Wilders can garner enough parliamentary support to undertake this enormous task still lingers, however, and the real battle has only just begun.
Flat Country, a Mountain of Support
With 99% of the vote counted, the final results are in: nearly a quarter of the Dutch cast their votes for Wilders. PVV received 23.5% of the votes, which translates to an impressive 37-seat presence in the 150-seat Second Chamber, more than any party had after the last elections.
“The PVV can no longer be ignored,” Wilders celebrated. “We will govern.”
Before last night, most media would have you believe there could be only two winners of this race: outgoing PM Mark Rutte’s nominally center-right, but more liberal VVD which has been ruling the Netherlands for 14 years, or the EU’s ex-climate chief, Frans Timmermans-led Green/Left-Labor alliance (GL-PvdA), that was promising to bring in even more progressive and socialist policies in The Hague, and of course double down on the (already catastrophic) anti-climate-change measures that are ruining the country’s food production and is casting it into a pit of energy dependency.
Well, the Dutch apparently had enough of all that. Wednesday’s results are not only an endorsement of a “Netherlands first”-type of leadership, but also—more importantly—a protest vote against the government’s rampant elitism of the last decade, including a stop to unrestrained immigration and all the disastrous climate policies. A call for a U-turn in Dutch politics, if you will.
Nothing is bigger evidence of this than the giant gap between PVV and the rest of the big parties in terms of the results. Timmermans’ progressive greens did come in second, but only with 15.5%, or 25 seats. They are followed by VVD in third place with 15.1% and 24 seats, as well as the newly created anti-establishment, but politically very similar, centrist party New Social Contract (NSC) with 12.8% or 20 seats.
It’s important to note that strategic voting played a profound role in this election. A good portion of both left and right-wing voters abandoned their smaller parties to support the strongest ones in order to prevent either PVV or the GL-PvdA from forming the next coalition. But because there is a lot more competition on the Right, strategic voting benefited Wilders to a much greater extent than it did Timmermans.
In fact, only 39% of those voting for the PVV did so two years ago. All the other anti-establishment conservative parties lost seats, mainly to the benefit of Wilders. Thierry Baudet’s FvD has fallen from 8 to 3 seats, the FvD-offshoot JA21 went from 3 to 1, and the libertarian BVNL completely dropped out of the parliament. Of course, the biggest group to desert their old party in favor of PVV were dissatisfied and disillusioned VVD voters, making up 15% of Wilders’ total support.
Cold Shower for the European Left
The general atmosphere in The Hague, and throughout Europe, is quite reminiscent of the 2016 U.S. elections. Not just in terms of the collective disbelief that dominates the mood of leftists across the country, but also in the specific way in which a goofy-haired blonde populist has likely prevented the country from having its first female prime minister.
In the eyes of the media and the entire establishment, the two likely contenders for the prime minister’s seat were the greens’ Frans Timmermans and VVD’s new chairwoman and minister of justice, the Turkish-born Dilan Yesilgöz.
Similarly to how Democrats were entirely convinced of Hillary Clinton’s victory—with Newsweek prematurely distributing 125,000 copies of its special issue, titled Madam President—BBC reported that Yesilgöz’s staff was already raising glasses to the Netherlands’ first female PM, only to find out the people have something very different in their mind.
Unsurprisingly, leftist media outlets are scrambling to make sense of these results, for better or worse. Politico was quick to set the narrative: VVD lost because Yesilgöz tried to steer her party toward limiting migration, which somehow sent her voters to the “real anti-immigrant” Wilders instead. If she just stayed out of the whole migration debate, the paper heavily implies, Yesilgöz could have been victorious.
If anything, these results show the opposite. Migration—along with the connected housing crisis, as well as the much-criticized climate measures—have become endemic in the eyes of the people who blame the last 14 years of the VVD government for everything that went wrong. They didn’t want the VVD to just slightly recalibrate its previous path. They wanted a complete U-turn—promised only by Wilders.
Yesilgöz appears to come to the same conclusion. “I think there are big lessons for politicians in this. People were not listened to enough,” she told her disappointed supporters and staff last night.
For his part, Timmermans went on the offense instead, and—as the experienced Brusselite he is—immediately tried to frame Wilders’ democratic victory as the opposite of what it is. “Now is the time when we are going to defend democracy,” the ex-commissioner said.
Indeed, European elites seem increasingly concerned while looking at these results. A Wilders-led Dutch government would definitely stir up the current status quo in Brussels. PVV is against sending more aid to Ukraine, is fiercely anti-EU-federalist and would hinder any efforts toward deeper integration, while also making a staunch ally to the anti-immigration countries in Central Europe when it comes to negotiating the fine print of the upcoming Migration Pact.
What’s more, the Netherlands is often considered a bellwether for electoral trends throughout Europe. If the Dutch voters are mostly concerned about migration, the cost of living crisis, and the economic consequences of the green transition, then these themes will likely drive next year’s EU elections as well, which could turn out a disaster for Brussels’ left-wing establishment.
Especially if you take into account the potential effect of the Israel-Hamas war—and the ensuing mayhem on Europe’s streets—on voter preferences. After all, the Dutch election was the first major feedback in Europe since October 7th, and PVV’s polling data from the previous weeks does seem to show a nation suddenly waking up to the reality of unrestrained immigration by the pro-Palestinian rallies.
Enfant Terrible of Dutch Politics
Long considered to be the Dutch Left’s, if not the entire entrenched political elite’s boogeyman, Geert Wilders, 60, has been the Party for Freedom’s (PVV) leader since 2006. Ever since that year, he has been an MP in the House of Representatives.
Unlike other parties, the PVV has no membership option, not even for its own people’s representatives: Wilders himself is the party’s only member. Over the years, Wilders has been represented in the Upper House, the European Parliament, Provincial States, and a number of municipalities.
For his consistency and vociferousness in drawing attention to the threat posed by Islamist ideology (often imported through mass immigration from Muslim countries), Wilders has been regularly excluded from participation in government by other party leaders—much like the Vlaams Belang party in Belgium, which, despite its overwhelming popularity with voters, has been shut out of governing since 1989 by way of a so-called cordon sanitaire.
To bring a halt to the Netherlands’ further Islamisation, Wilders seeks to completely stop immigration from those countries.
While he has stated he does not harbor any ill will towards Muslims, Wilders has called Islam a “violent religion” and an “intolerant and fascist ideology.” For that critique, and his suggestions on how to deal with it, ironically, Wilders has frequently been smeared as a fascist himself by his political opponents.
Ever since the PVV’s founding in 2006, which led to multiple threats against his life, Wilders has been assigned a state-financed personal security team, which tracks his movements and follows him wherever he goes.
A trial against Wilders for group defamation, incitement to hatred, and discrimination because of his public statements led to full acquittals in 2010 and 2011 (on appeal). A second long-term criminal trial on the same charges followed after he made a promise to his supporters in March 2014 that he was going to “arrange” for “fewer Moroccans” to enter the country. In the process, also on appeal, he was convicted of group defamation.
Like Thierry Baudet’s pro-national-sovereignty Forum voor Democratie (FvD), he is also a proponent of a “Nexit,” which would take the Netherlands out of the European Union.
Coalition Government: Rocky Road Ahead
While Wilders is now in the driver’s seat, to form his coalition (which for obvious reasons he would prefer to be right-wing) he would need to woo two parties among the “big four” (PVV, GL-PvdA, VVD, and NSC).
Without their support, Wilders could try one comprising at least ten parties, which is perhaps an even more unenviable task.
Wilders’ obvious picks would be the VVD and Omtzigt’s NSC, with which he would have a workable majority of 81 seats (out of 150).
Adding to this the BBB, the newly created Dutch Farmers’ Movement—enticing because of the BBB’s large number of seats in the Senate—Wilders could up that number, arriving at 88 seats.