Dutch Prime Minister Celebrates Win Over ‘The Wrong Kind of Populism’

The right-wing populist shaped the election debate with his anti-Islamist rhetoric and he will now be a powerful voice of opposition in Government.

Political analysts said Rutte won on a mix of factors, not all of which may apply to France, where far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen is expected to make it through to a second-round runoff in a presidential election in May.

The Netherlands’ centre-right Prime Minister Mark Rutte was on course for a resounding victory over anti-Islam and anti-EU Geert Wilders in an election on March 15. Rutte’s win for the Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) leaves him with eight fewer seats than last year’s election. There was so much worldwide press attention after Brexit, Trump, and they looked to the Netherlands, before French and German elections, for a signal on what the populists would do.

Wednesday’s election is expected to be followed by protracted coalition talks.

It remains to be seen if the 30-year-old Mr Klaver will take his party into the next ruling coalition, which looks likely to be dominated by Mr Rutte’s VVD and other right-leaning parties.

Amid unprecedented worldwide attention, the Dutch go to the polls Wednesday in a parliamentary election that is seen as a bellwether for the future of populism in a year of crucial votes in Europe.

The head of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office, Peter Altmaier, described the exit poll result as “terrific”. A 82% of eligible voters made it to the ballot, as Dutch society seems to have strong democratic reflexes after all.

But Wilders, lately seen as a much bigger threat to Rutte than he turned out to be, has warned that the prime minister “has not seen the last of me!” His party also wants the Netherlands to leave the European Union.

Krouwel also said Wilders, despite his slight gain of seats, now faced being nearly powerless in the new political environment.

Farje also maintained that Trump has made a “huge contribution” to the emergence of these far-right parties in Europe, asserting that they are using the same slogan that Trump used during his election campaign which is to ‘make their countries great again’. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan hurled a new round of abuse at The Netherlands on Wednesday, accusing the country of massacring over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995.

The seats will be contested by 28 parties, but the proportionate representation allows even the smallest ones play a certain role within the parliament.

The Labour Party (PvdA), the junior party in the governing coalition, suffered a historic defeat with only nine seats, a loss of 29. The VVD will still have to form a coalition government with other leading parties before securing a majority.