Dutch people rejected “the wrong kind of
populism”,
Prime Minister Mark Rutte has said, as
he celebrated
victory in Wednesday’s election.
“The Netherlands said ‘Whoa!'” he
declared after his
centre-right VVD party’s lead positioned
him for a
third successive term as prime minister.
With nearly all votes counted, his party
easily beat the
anti-immigration Freedom party of Geert
Wilders.
Fellow eurozone countries France and
Germany also
face elections this year.
The Dutch race was seen as a test of
support for
nationalist parties that have been
gaining ground
across Europe.
Mr Wilders insisted “the patriotic spring”
would still
happen.
The euro gained as the results pointed
to a clear
victory for the prime minister’s party.
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How big is Rutte’s win?
With 97% of votes counted, the prime
minister’s party
had won 33 out of 150 seats, a loss of
eight seats
from the previous parliament.
The Freedom party was in second place
on 20 seats,
a gain of five, with the Christian
Democrats (CDA)
and the liberal D66 party close behind
with 19 seats
each.
The Green-Left party also did well,
winning 14 seats,
an increase of 10.
The Labour Party (PvdA), the junior
party in the
governing coalition, suffered a historic
defeat by
winning only nine seats, a loss of 29.
Turnout was 80.2%, the highest for 30
years, which
analysts say may have benefited pro-EU
and liberal
parties.
“We want to stick to the course we have
– safe and
stable and prosperous,” Mr Rutte said.
What does this mean for the EU?
France goes to the polls next month to
elect a new
president, with the far right National
Front forecast to
increase its vote dramatically.
In Germany, the populist Alternative for
Germany
(AfD) may win seats in parliament for
the first time in
September’s general election.
Mr Rutte’s victory was warmly greeted
by other
European leaders and politicians:
French President Francois Hollande said
he had
won a “clear victory against extremism”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
congratulated
Mr Rutte and her chief of staff, Peter
Altmaier,
tweeted: “The Netherlands, oh the
Netherlands
you are a champion! Congratulations on
this
great result”
Martin Schulz, president of the European
Parliament until earlier this year, said he
was
relieved the Freedom Party had lost. “We
must
continue to fight for an open and free
Europe!” he
added on Twitter (in German)
Where does Wilders stand now?
Weeks before the election, opinion polls
forecast the
PVV winning the biggest number of
seats but Mr
Wilders’ lead vanished as the vote drew
near.
He had pledged to take the Netherlands
out of the
EU, close all mosques and ban the
Koran.
He warned that Mr Rutte had “not seen
the last” of
him.
“It’s not the 30 seats I hoped for but we
have gained
seats,” he added. “This patriotic spring
will happen.”
Did Wilders fail?
In reality his party gained five seats and,
as he
pointed out, it is now the second biggest
in
parliament not the third.
But his decline in the polls was clear
and it is being
seen partly as self-inflicted.
He refused to take part in two TV
debates because of
scathing comments about him made by
his brother,
Paul, on the same TV channel. And
many of the
public comments he made during the
campaign were
to foreign journalists.
But it was as much Mark Rutte’s
success as Geert
Wilders’ failure. The prime minister’s
response to
Nazi slurs against the Dutch made by
Turkey’s
President Erdogan was praised across
the political
spectrum.
There was no let-up in Turkey’s rhetoric
on Thursday,
when Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu
complained
that Europe’s politicians were “taking
Europe toward
an abyss”, adding: “Soon religious wars
will break
out in Europe. That’s the way it’s
going.”
How long before a new government is
formed?
As parliamentary seats are allocated in
exact
proportion to a party’s vote share, the
VVD will need
to go into coalition with three other
parties.
If recent Dutch history teaches you
anything about
coalition-building, it is that it will not
happen
overnight. In 2012 it took 54 days, and
that was
relatively fast as it involved just two
parties.
Mr Rutte has spoken of a “zero chance”
of working
with Mr Wilders’ PVV, and will look
instead to the
Christian Democrats and D66, which are
both pro-
EU. It would still be several seats short
of forming a
government and would need further
support from a
fourth party, perhaps the Christian
Union.
The VVD has much in common with the
liberal D66 in
backing progressive policies on soft
drugs and
assisted dying. But that would be
resisted by both
parties with a Christian background. The
path to a
coalition will not be easy.
Latest results:
VVD – People’s Party for Freedom and
Democracy
(Leader: PM Mark Rutte)
PVV – Freedom Party (Leader: Geert
Wilders)
CDA – Christian Democratic Appeal
(Leader:
Sybrand Buma)
D66 – Democrats 66 (Leader: Alexander
Pechtold)
Green-Left – (Leader: Jesse Klaver)
SP – Socialist Party (Leader: Emile
Roemer)
PvdA – Labour Party (Leader: Lodewijk
Asscher)
Party