Dutch far right takes a prize

It could easily have been third time lucky in the Netherlands for political pundits. In 2017 they relentlessly talked up the prospects of the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) and its leader Geert Wilders, suggesting that it was on course to top the poll and that Wilders might become prime minister. Instead he fell well short, winning only 13.1% of the vote. At the following election, in 2021, its vote declined to 10.8% and Wilders remained firmly out of office.

This time, however, the PVV hit the jackpot: in last week’s election (previewed here) it comfortably topped the poll with 23.6% of the vote, 800,000 votes clear of its nearest rival, and it’s even possible that Wilders really will become prime minister. (See official figures here.) But the pundits had all moved on by then, and the result came as a total surprise.

The real lesson in the result, however, is not for pundits but for mainstream parties: giving in on the far-right’s signature issues is a fool’s game. Stealing their disreputable clothes sometimes works in the short term – as it famously did for Australia’s John Howard in 2001 – but it nearly always strengthens them in the longer term, giving them unwarranted credibility and shifting the discourse in their favor.

So it was in the Netherlands. The right-liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) under retiring prime minister Mark Rutte shifted to the right on immigration, not only breaking up the government in the process but playing into the hands of Wilders, who has made a career out of demonising immigrants, especially Muslims. Faced with different leaders telling them that Muslims were the source of all their problems, voters not unreasonably opted for the one who had been saying it more loudly and consistently.

VVD’s vote fell by almost a third, to 15.2%. Ahead of it was the alliance of the Greens and centre-left, led by Frans Timmerman, on 15.7%, 4.8% better than their combined score from last time. In fourth place, on 12.9%, was the new entrant, Pieter Omtzigt’s New Social Contract (NSC); a comedown from its recent peak, but still an impressive showing. So for all the talk beforehand about how this election would bring generation change, it was the veterans, Wilders (aged 60) and Timmerman (63), who did the best: but perhaps the attraction wasn’t their age, but the fact that they seemed to actually believe in something.

The polls missed the late surge in Wilders’s support, but the hint was there in the decline of his competitors on the far right. In the provincial elections, held eight months ago, far-right parties scored nearly a third of the vote between them. Last week’s total was almost the same (in fact down slightly to 31.2%), but the composition had changed radically: the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), the big winner in March, dropped to 4.7%, while the Forum for Democracy, which had peaked in the polls in 2019 before self-destructing, was down to 2.2%.

No doubt that this is a big story, but that’s not to say it justifies the breathless nature of some of the media coverage. The BBC as usual is a notable offender, with its description of topping the poll as “winning” an election – or in this case, “dramatic victory”. It needs to be emphasised that if Wilders does become prime minister it will not be as the choice of the voters, more than three-quarters of whom voted for other parties and more than half of whom voted for parties strongly opposed to his views.

In my preview last week I said “It seems probable that VVD, NSC and Greens/Labor will have a majority between them (or as close to it as doesn’t matter), in which case the question will be whether they can work together in government.” And they did indeed come close enough to be easily within reach of a majority: the three have 69 of the 150 seats between them. The left-liberal D66 (another component of the outgoing government) with its nine seats would be enough to put them over the top; the Christian Democrats (five seats), Animals Party and Christian Union (three each) would also provide options.

Working together in government would be just one option. Another would be for the mainstream parties to agree together on terms under which they would tolerate a PVV minority government, keeping Wilders on a tight leash. Or some alternative minority government could be established. So far it’s not looking good, but these are early days.

The main lesson, though, is the same one we’ve seen here many times. Extremist parties depend only partly on their own strength; more than that, they depend on the willingness of mainstream parties to embrace their agenda and to co-operate with them in government. If those parties stand firm, as the VVD so conspicuously failed to do this time, the extremists cannot force their way into power.

And once again the Dutch have reason to be grateful for their democratic electoral system. With less than a quarter of the vote, Wilders won less than a quarter of the seats: 37 out of 150. In many countries, he would have a had a majority or close to it. The system gave the voters what they wanted, in all its complexity; now it’s up to the politicians to govern with it.