AfD, Orban and Le Pen congratulate: big winner of right-wing populist Wilder Now you can call Trump a fascist

According to an initial forecast, right-wing populist Geert Wilders is the big winner of the House of Representatives elections in the Netherlands. According to the forecast published by the ANP news agency on Thursday evening, Wilders and his Party for Freedom (PVV) will probably win 36 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives. That would be more than twice as many seats as in the previous elections in 2021.

According to the forecast, the alliance of social democrats and greens has 25 seats, eight more than in 2021. The right-wing liberal government party VVD of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte lost ten mandates and now has 24. The new center party NSC is immediately allowed 20 seats to win.

Right-wing extremist Wilders announced that he now also wants to govern. But for a majority he needs at least two parties – and the question is whether he can actually find partners for a coalition.

“The voter has now spoken,” Wilders said on television on Wednesday evening. “I believe we all have to jump over our shadows now.” Under no circumstances should the will of the voters be ignored. “The Netherlands has spoken and, as far as I am concerned, it must be implemented.” A preliminary result is expected early Thursday morning.

Wilders tried to allay fears that his Freedom Party (PVV) would take too radical measures. He assured that the forced closure of mosques that he sought is not a problem at the moment. The priority now is to limit the ‘shelter tsunami’.

AfD leader Alice Weidel congratulated Wilders on the short message service X, formerly Twitter: “Congratulations on this great success. All of Europe wants political change! #Wilders #AfD». According to reports in the Dutch media, Wilders also received congratulations from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and French right-wing nationalist Marine Le Pen.

According to a projection by Dutch television, Wilders’ PVV has 36 of the 150 seats in parliament. Appreciation for the PVV has continued to rise in surveys in recent weeks. The leading candidate of the right-wing liberals, Dilan Yesilgöz, is often seen as partly responsible for this. She said at the start of the election campaign that she would not exclude Wilders as a coalition partner from the outset. The outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte, also a right-wing liberal, had always refused to cooperate with Wilders. On Dutch television on Wednesday evening, the question immediately arose whether Yesilgöz had made Wilders socially acceptable with her approach.

According to the forecast, Yesilgöz and Rutte’s party, the right-liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), will have 24 seats, a loss of ten mandates. The alliance of Greens and Social Democrats, led by former EU Commissioner Frans Timmermans, provides 25 seats, an increase of eight. The party of former Christian Democrat Pieter Omtzigt, the New Social Contract (NSC), founded only a few weeks ago, can count on 20 seats, according to the forecast.

It is completely unclear whether Wilders can actually form the next government. Omtzigt had ruled out cooperation with him in the election campaign because he represented anti-constitutional positions. On election night he seemed to soften this position somewhat by adopting Wilders’ formulation that all parties must now “jump over their shadows”. Yesilgöz had not ruled out cooperation with Wilders, but said shortly before the elections that she did not want to join a government led by Prime Minister Wilders. She also seemed to soften this position somewhat on the evening of the elections and emphasized that it is now Wilders’ turn: “We will weigh it carefully in the group. “Then we’ll see where it leads,” she said.

The early parliamentary elections became necessary after Rutte’s centre-right coalition collapsed in the summer after just eighteen months in office. The reason for this was a dispute over migration policy. Rutte, the longest-serving prime minister in Dutch history, then announced his departure from national politics and now wants to become NATO secretary general. However, he will remain in office until a new government takes office.

In the Netherlands, right-wing populism developed more than twenty years ago into an integral part of the political landscape. The first successful right-wing populist Pim Fortuyn was murdered by a militant animal protection activist in 2002, a few days before the House of Representatives elections. Wilders inherited his legacy and made much more radical demands, such as a ban on the Koran. Political scientist and Wilders biographer Meindert Fennema (1946-2023) warned in an interview with the German Press Agency in 2017: “He is someone who wants to abolish the rule of law by democratic means.”

Surveys have repeatedly shown that Wilders voters are pessimistic about their future and fearful of change. They often live in stagnant industrial areas or in rural areas where young people are moving away.

Wilder’s slogans include not only ‘Islam does not belong in the Netherlands’, but also ‘more staff in healthcare’ and ‘lower rents and taxes’. Political scientists see this mixture of right-wing slogans and classic left-wing demands as his recipe for success. Another special feature: Wilders’ party has only one member: himself, and in this way he wants to prevent others from overruling him and taking control himself. (sda/dpa)