A month after Geert Wilders emerged as the shock winner of the Dutch election, closed-door talks between his Freedom party (PVV) and three others have begun – but with no certainty of agreement, still less on the shape of an eventual coalition.
The far-right PVV took nearly a quarter of the vote in the 22 November ballot, winning 37 seats in the 150-seat parliament. But with 15 other parties also winning seats, it needs at least two partners to form a coalition government that is sure of a majority.
Wilders, whose manifesto called for a “Nexit” referendum on leaving the EU, the rejection of all new asylum claims, and bans on mosques, the Qur’an and Islamic headscarves in public buildings, has pledged to moderate his most hardline policies.
But so far only one other party with a significant number of seats in parliament, the agrarian Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) with seven seats, has said it is willing to enter a formal coalition with the veteran far-right provocateur.
Of the two other potential partners identified by the coalition “scout” Ronald Plasterk, a former interior minister, the VVD (24 seats) of the outgoing prime minister, Mark Rutte, has ruled out joining a PVV-led cabinet but could lend parliamentary support. The other, the NSC (20 seats), led by a campaigning former Christian Democrat MP, Pieter Omtzigt, has expressed strong reservations about governing with Wilders, but was convinced by Plasterk to at least take a seat at the negotiating table.
Forming a new coalition in the Netherlands can often take many months: talks after the 2021 election lasted 299 days. However, the process this time may be given added urgency by recent polling showing Wilders’ popularity surging.
If the ballot were held now, polls suggest, the PVV would win more than 30% of the vote and an extra 10 seats. Research by Ipsos also showed that confidence in Dilan Yeşilgöz, Rutte’s successor as the VVD leader, had plunged since the election. Only 53% of those who voted for the party still backed Yeşilgöz, the Ipsos poll found, suggesting strong dissatisfaction among the VVD’s more rightwing voters with her announcement that the party would not join a PVV-led coalition.
Plasterk has said the four parties – which between them have a comfortable majority of 88 seats – represented the only viable constellation for a stable government, with the participation of the BBB important because of its strength on the senate. The former Labour party minister, now a columnist for the conservative De Telegraaf newspaper, was last week appointed as coalition “formateur” and will head the talks. He said earlier this month the parties would find a way to overcome their differences.
“In the end, the country must be governed,” Plasterk said. The talks are now entering a period of “radio silence”, he has said, with no further news likely until late February.
The formateur has recommended the talks take place in three phrases: first, the parties must first try to overcome clear constitutional issues raised by Wilders’ platform, then reach a compromise on major policy areas including immigration, Europe and the climate crisis. Lastly, the four will need to define the form of the new government: a coalition with a guaranteed majority in the lower house, or a minority government relying on confidence and supply deals, as preferred by Yeşilgöz.
Omtzigt, who ran on a platform of far-reaching democratic reform and has pledged to “do politics differently”, has also raised a third possibility: a technocratic government composed of expert and non-partisan ministers.
Wilders told a recent parliamentary debate the PVV would approach the talks in a “responsible and reasonable” manner. But Plasterk, acknowledging the difficulties ahead, has said the parties would need to “look deep into each other’s eyes” if a stable government was to emerge.
