Dutch election results show Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom taking 37 seats – Europe live
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With nearly all votes counted, preliminary results in the Dutch election show Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) took 37 seats, more than any other party and significantly more than expected in opinion polling during the campaign.
A GreenLeft-Labour party alliance (GL/PvdA) led by the former EU commissioner Frans Timmermans finished second with 25 seats.
The liberal-conservative Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), led by the outgoing justice minister, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, got 24 seats.
Much will now depend on a coalition-building process.
Geert Wilders on PVV election signs at the Binnenhof, a day after the elections. Photograph: Hollandse Hoogte/Shutterstock
Alexander Clarkson, a lecturer for German and European studies at King’s College London, said this morning that “Left and Right as broader camps each have a substantial presence and will still do so”.
“What is constantly shifting is which strand of the Right from Far Right to Far Right Populists to Conservatives to Christian Democrats to Rightish Neo-Liberals is dominant at any one time,” he said.
Geert Wilders, the academic said, like Jörg Haider in Austria “has built his success on condemning coalition horsetrading that imposed policy compromise at the expense of ideological purism on every other Dutch party”.
He added:
I suspect the trajectory of Wilders in power would be that of Haider as a populist entirely focused on gaining power yet struggles to use it effectively once it is in his hands rather than that of a canny strategist like Giorgia Meloni.
A characteristic that Far Right populists like Haider, Farage and Wilders share is a desperate hankering after respect from the political establishment they spend their careers condemning.
A characteristic that Far Right populists like Haider, Farage and Wilders share is a desperate hankering after respect from the political establishment they spend their careers condemning
Geert Wilders celebrated this morning as counting showed his far right PVV party took 37 seats – two more than expected in last night’s exit polling and significantly more than predicted in opinion polling during the campaign.
Geert Wilders’ far-right, anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) is on course to be the largest party in the Dutch parliament, in a major electoral upset whose reverberations will be felt around Europe.
The PVV, whose manifesto includes calls for bans on mosques, the Qur’an and Islamic headscarves in government buildings, is expected to win 37 seats in the 150-seat parliament, more than double the number it won in the previous ballot in 2021.
However, it is unclear whether Wilders – whose party has finished second and third in previous elections, but always been shut out of government – will be able to win enough support to form a coalition with a working parliamentary majority.
“I call on the parties,” Wilders said in an initial reaction after the vote. “The campaign is over and the voters have spoken. Now we will have to look for agreements with each other.”
He insisted in his victory speech that he was “confident we can reach an agreement”, adding: “I understand perfectly well we should not take any measures that would be unconstitutional.”
Far-right figures across Europe, including Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, France’s Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini in Italy, and Germany’s AfD rushed to congratulate the PVV leader.
The heads of the three other biggest Dutch parties have all said they would not serve in a PVV-led cabinet.
With nearly all votes counted, preliminary results in the Dutch election show Geert Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) took 37 seats, more than any other party and significantly more than expected in opinion polling during the campaign.
A GreenLeft-Labour party alliance (GL/PvdA) led by the former EU commissioner Frans Timmermans finished second with 25 seats.
The liberal-conservative Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), led by the outgoing justice minister, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, got 24 seats.
Much will now depend on a coalition-building process.
Geert Wilders on PVV election signs at the Binnenhof, a day after the elections. Photograph: Hollandse Hoogte/Shutterstock
