The anti-Islam, euroskeptic radical Geert Wilders is projected to be the shock winner of the Dutch election.
In a dramatic result that will stun European politics, his Freedom Party (PVV) is set to win around 35 of the 150 seats in parliament — more than double the number it secured in the 2021 election, according to exit polls.
Frans Timmermans’ Labour-Green alliance is forecast to take second place, winning 25 seats — a big jump from its current 17. Dilan Yeşilgöz, outgoing premier Mark Rutte’s successor as head of the center-right VVD, suffered heavy losses and is on course to take 24 seats, 10 fewer than before, according to the updated exit poll by Ipsos for national broadcaster NOS.
A win for Wilders will put the Netherlands on track — potentially — for a dramatic shift in direction, after Rutte’s four consecutive centrist governments. The question now, though, is whether any other parties are willing to join Wilders to form a coalition. Despite emerging as the largest party, he will lack an overall majority in parliament.
Agreed “win” is too simplistic. Still good shot at forming government though. I’m not familiar with the Dutch system, but, even in systems with proportional representation, the plurality winner usually gets first shot at forming government, and by convention usually does form government. They need 76 seats to govern and are more than halfway there with 37.
This is how we do it. But it might be difficult for him to form an alliance, since all other relevant parties have serious issues with parts of his party program.
Mostly because his program is extremely rightwing but also extremely leftwing at the same time. And financially its all a big foggy mess.
I don’t know how the Dutch system works, but some time ago a pro-Russian party won like 30-40% of seats in Latvia, but every other party joined together against them. And they couldn’t do shit even though they had the biggest number of seats. If it’s not 50%+1 - it doesn’t matter.
I believe no party has ever held an absolute majority in the Netherlands. And there has only ever been one time in the Netherlands when the biggest party did not govern.
Personally, I see two options: the most likely is Geert Wilders will become our prime minister, or (less likely) there will be new elections.
