In a shopping centre in Volendam, a fishing port north of Amsterdam, on Friday, there was satisfaction about far-right politician Geert Wilders having dominated last Wednesday’s Dutch elections. “It’s a really good thing,” said Pieter, who didn’t want to give a last name. “There’s a shortage of houses, people are still coming. The borders have to shut.”
In pretty Volendam, long a Wilders stronghold, the Party for Freedom (PVV) won 42.9% of the vote, an 18.6 percentage point increase on 2021. The jaws of politicians, political scientists and Wilders himself dropped open when early forecasts suggested a win of 37 seats – around a quarter of parliament and his largest share ever.
This blond politician sometimes called “the Dutch Trump” and known for his inflammatory comments on Islam, a criminal record for insulting Dutch Moroccans and being refused entry to Britain, has shocked the nation. According to provisional results, the veteran MP, who lives with 24-hour security after receiving death threats, is riding a wave of concern about immigration, housing, the cost of living and mistrust in governments after a string of scandals.
In a nearby cafe, Arjen, 57, said: “It’s a vote against the established order. They have made a mess of things.”
At the next table, B&B owner Vincent Veerman, 55, said he’d previously voted for conventional rightwing parties but wanted a government that would crack down on immigration from “chancers”: he approved of the PVV’s “asylum stop”, citing concerns about crime since 160 asylum seekers were housed in the town’s Van der Valk hotel. “The reason I voted PVV,” he said, is purely so the government doesn’t go with [Frans] Timmermans.” (Timmermans leads the country’s second-largest party, the combined GreenLeft/Labour.)
The Netherlands is known for low corruption, press freedom and moderation, but for the past two decades another current has been present: support for far-right parties. Anti-Islam Pim Fortuyn, murdered just before elections in 2002, created an eponymous party that won 26 seats and took part in government before falling apart. The far-right Forum for Democracy did well in provincial elections and became the biggest party in the Senate in 2019 before meeting a similar fate. According to Prof Tom Louwerse of Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science, the Dutch far right has polled on average 15% to 20% for the past decade.
There’s a sense that not everyone in the Netherlands has the same opportunities, particularly among those who were less successful in the highly selective secondary school system. Journalist Joris Luyendijk recently identified “seven ticks” – including better education, whiteness and a Dutch parent – that speed a person’s progress in a supposedly non-hierarchical society. Prof Marcel Lubbers, a social scientist at Utrecht University, agrees: “Among voters with an immigrant background, a large majority feels their interests are not well represented in politics, but we also see this among a very large group without immigrant backgrounds who vote for anti-immigration parties.”
Prof Matthijs Rooduijn of Amsterdam University says he sees the election as a “breeding ground for rightwing populism”. Many parties campaigned on immigration, playing into the hands of Wilders, who links migrants with crime and housing issues. Rooduijn’s research suggests 15% of the PVV vote came from people deserting prime minister Mark Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).
Early in the campaign, the new VVD leader, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, opened the door to Wilders by saying she would not exclude him from a coalition, as most mainstream parties had done, deterred by his extremism.
Wilders responded by apparently taking a milder tone. On current affairs TV show Nieuwsuur he said he could put his manifesto policies about banning mosques, Islamic schools and the Qur’an on ice. “The priority lies with other things if it’s about the coming period of government,” he said, softly.
This clearly appealed. At his campaign launch in the southern town of Venlo, voters said they liked his nativist message but thought sometimes he went a bit far. Five weeks later, here in Volendam, Veerman said Wilders was taking a more moderate tone than “leftwing extremists” did on the climate. “I don’t care what you believe – Catholic, Protestant, Islam – as long as you respect everyone else,” he said. “We have a multicultural society.”
Although Wilders is extremely rightwing on immigration, he has populist policies on healthcare, pensions, the minimum wage and social housing. “The electorate of the PVV in general consists of people who experience more difficulties,” said Rooduijn. “They feel they are being neglected. They have tough lives, economically but also culturally. And that is one of the reasons they vote for a party that promises radical change.”
But will this radical change happen? Wilders has won the most seats and been invited to try to form a coalition. But in Dutch representative democracy, the result of the horse-trading is far from obvious. He may not end up as prime minister, and if he fails to build a coalition, another party might try. It could take months.
The most obvious option would be a rightwing coalition of the PVV, VVD, Pieter Omtzigt’s New Social Contract and the rightwing Farmer Citizen Movement (BBB). But Yeşilgöz-Zegerius has said she will not be part of a Wilders government, though they might support some policies. Centre-right Omtzigt previously excluded working with “anti-constitutional” viewpoints yet is now talking vaguely about “taking responsibility”.
Raoul du Pré of the Volkskrant daily newspaper, says Wilders – a quick and cutting debater – has benefited from the absence of Rutte, who announced he was standing down as leader in the summer, to win debates but also used the media to portray a softer side.
But Wilders’s manifesto, which is half the length of those of the VVD, NSC and GreenLeft/Labour, had no official costing and contains a deep irony. ING economists Marcel Klok and Marieke Blom analysed a potential Wilders-NSC-BBB coalition supported by Yeşilgöz-Zegerius. They found that the impact on the economy would be stimulative: “Given the current strains in the labour market, we expect this to result in more demand for foreign workers.”
• This article was amended on 27 November 2023. An earlier version said that in Volendam the PVV “won 18.6% of the vote”. It meant to say that (according to provisional figures), the PVV vote was 18.6 percentage points more than at the last election. In 2021 the party won 24.3% of the vote in the Edam-Volendam constituency.
