The Hague, Netherlands
Reuters
—
Dutch centrist leader Rob Jetten said he was “very confident” in forming a government after Geert Wilders’ anti-Muslim Freedom Party performed well in parliamentary elections.
Mr Jetten’s D66 and Wilders’ PVV are expected to be tied on Thursday, giving the parties 26 seats in the 150-member House of Commons, as most of the votes are counted for Wednesday’s general election, which was seen as a test of the far-right’s strength in Europe.
This is a significant decline for Wilders’ party, which has lost more than a quarter of its seats in two years due to a poor performance in its first attempt to win government and increased competition from the right. D66 tripled the score.
The main mainstream parties have ruled out Mr. Wilders forming a government this time around after his party led to the collapse of the previous coalition government. This leaves him with no viable path to a majority, unlike D66’s young leader Jetten, who still needs to win the support of several other parties.
Mr Jetten, 38, will become the Netherlands’ youngest and first gay prime minister.
The election “sent a very strong message to Dutch voters that centrist and active political forces want to work together to benefit all Dutch people,” he said.
With a sophisticated message and a surge in advertising spending, Jetten has moved beyond the D66 party’s traditional themes of climate change and education and into the divisive themes of immigration and the housing crisis. In the process, he gained support from some voters who had previously relied on right-wing parties.
“I’m very excited to have the first gay prime minister of the Netherlands, a prime minister who brings together all the positive forces,” 25-year-old voter Lotte van Slooten said at an overnight D66 campaign rally.
Government-forming talks, which typically take months in the Netherlands, will be particularly complicated in a highly divided parliament. “It will be very difficult,” said Kaisa Ollongren, a D66 member who served as defense minister in Jetten’s government.
D66 and PVV tied for first place, but it was still unclear who would get the first chance to form a government.
Party leaders will meet on Friday and are likely to decide on next steps, either appointing a “scout” to begin coalition talks or deciding to wait for a final result, which is likely to be obtained within days.
The Dutch general election was seen as a test of whether the far-right can expand its influence and whether it has reached its peak in some parts of Europe.
This result suggests that there are some limits to its appeal.
“We have shown not only the Netherlands but also the world that it is possible to defeat populist and far-right movements,” Jetten told the crowd at the party’s election night celebrations.
But the PVV’s tie for first place also showed that far-right parties remain a permanent part of Europe’s increasingly fragmented political landscape, even as many other parties tighten their stance on immigration.
Wilders said that if the PVV ultimately wins more votes, he will take the lead in forming a government.
“D66 cannot take the lead unless it is 100% clear. We will do everything in our power to prevent that,” he said in a post on X.
Although vote counting is still ongoing, it is expected that the vote share will remain at 98.8%, with the two major parties tied for first place.
