“One thing is very certain,” said D66 leader Rob Jetten in his “victory speech” on Wednesday evening: “Millions of Dutch people have turned a page today.” With that page Jetten meant the radical right PVV of Geert Wilders as the largest party in the Netherlands.
At that time, the preliminary exit polls showed that D66 was aiming for 27 seats in the House of Representatives, two more than the PVV. But this morning the situation has changed again and the PVV seems to be in the lead in the counts for the time being, with a minimal difference in votes. It is a photo finish with PVV and D66 both heading for 26 seats. It is possible that votes from abroad will be decisive, or, for example, votes from Amsterdam, where counting is still underway.
This morning, Wilders did not accept a victory for D66 and a formation led by Jetten. As long as there is not yet “100% clarity, no D66 scout can get to work,” Wilders writes on X. “We will do everything to prevent this.”
The neck-and-neck race probably does not mean that Wilders will still have a prospect of becoming prime minister: all middle parties, including the VVD, have ruled out cooperation with him in a new cabinet. But if the PVV does become the largest, it will undermine the authority of an upcoming Jetten cabinet – despite the fact that the PVV will lose eleven seats compared to the 2023 elections.
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Middle coalition
It’s not the only thing that shifted vote counting overnight. On Wednesday, based on the exit polls, there seemed to be two recipes for a new cabinet: a ‘middle coalition’ of D66, VVD, CDA and GroenLinks-PvdA, or a ‘center-right’ cabinet of D66, VVD, CDA and JA21.
On election night in Leiden, prominent D66 members made it clear that their preference was for the first scenario. VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz has made it clear throughout the campaign that she does not like a coalition with GroenLinks-PvdA.
The ‘center-right’ coalition that Yesilgöz wants seemed to have a small majority on Wednesday evening. But not only D66, the CDA also had to give up a seat during the counting of votes. A coalition of D66 (26), VVD (22), CDA (18) and JA21 (9 seats) will therefore be stuck at 75 seats for the time being and will have to rely on a fifth party, such as the Christian Union (3), BBB (4 seats) or Volt (1) to achieve a meager parliamentary majority. The question is how stable such a coalition will be, and whether D66 sees fit.
A new government before Christmas, which some party leaders talked about, seems an illusion
For Rob Jetten, a formation with, for example, JA21 and BBB, two parties that are almost diametrically opposed to D66, is a headache in advance. However, a formation ‘through the middle’ with GroenLinks-PvdA requires that the VVD is prepared to – in The Hague jargon – ‘jump over its shadow’. In the final weeks of the campaign, VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz managed to limit her party’s losses by ruling out a coalition with GroenLinks-PvdA and thus appealing to the strategic vote of right-wing voters. To now enter a coalition with the ‘left’ would damage its credibility.
Jetten’s wish to form a “stable and ambitious” cabinet that, after two years of political standstill, will tackle the major problems of the Netherlands (housing, nitrogen, climate, migration) will probably take a lot of time. A new government before Christmas, which some party leaders talked about, seems an illusion. Even with the PVV as the largest – or almost largest – party on the sidelines, the pressure on the new coalition to limit migration will remain high.
If it were up to the PVV leader, the ‘Wilders page’ has not yet been turned. He wants to continue until he is eighty, he said on election day.
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