Geert Wilders’ far-right Islamophobic Dutch party won parliamentary elections on Wednesday, exit polls suggest, but the politician with the famously peroxided hair is far from assured of becoming prime minister.
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Geert Wilders is exultant this Wednesday evening at the exit of the polls, the Dutch have placed him very well in the lead and are giving him almost 20 more seats in the chamber. With 35 seats out of 150 according to the latest projections, it is far ahead of the liberal VVD who lost ten seats. With 24 seats, the party of former Prime Minister Mark Rutte even comes one seat behind the coalition of Labor and Greens, reports our correspondent in Brussels, Pierre Bénazet.
His anti-immigration message, including closing borders and deporting illegal immigrants, appears to have resonated with Dutch voters, but forming a governing coalition will be difficult. The PVV “ can no longer be ignored », insisted Geert Wilders, calling on the other parties to work together to form a coalition. Before the elections, the leaders of the three other major parties had assured that they would not participate in a coalition led by the PVV.
A coalition that promises to be complicated to form
The Party for Freedom of Geert Wilders therefore creates a surprise while the campaign had given the impression that the disenchantment of the Dutch with their politicians would especially benefit the new parties, on the one hand the citizen farmer movement which only won seven seats , on the other hand the NSC, the new social contract of Pieter Omtzigt. This new party formed in August on a promise of a new mode of government succeeded in its bet and won 20 seats, which places it in the position of kingmaker in the search for the future coalition which risks being complicated to form.
But coming out of the polls, the popular and populist Pieter Omtzigt said to himself: available ” to lead the Netherlands while conceding that the process would not be ” not easy “. His New Social Contract (NSC) party, created last summer, would have won 20 seats.
Sharp right turn
Frans Timmermans of the left-ecologists alliance immediately rejected the idea of joining a Geert Wilders coalition. “ Now is the time for us to defend democracy “, did he declare.
If it is confirmed by the final results, Geert Wilders’ victory marks a sudden turn to the right which will be greeted with apprehension in Brussels: the PVV has notably promised a referendum on the accession of the Netherlands to the European Union.
Hungarian nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban praised on X (formerly Twitter) “ The winds of change » after the announced victory of Geert Wilders.
(With AFP)