Dutch PM Rutte set to beat Anti-Islam leader Wilders
The Netherlands’ main exit poll suggests Prime Minister Mark Rutte easily defeated antiIslam lawmaker Geert Wilders in Wednesday’s Dutch parliamentary election, which was seen as a litmus test for populism in Europe.
The Ipsos exit poll suggests Rutte’s party won 31 seats in the 150-place legislature, 12 more than Wilders’ party, which shared second place with two other parties.
“I am so proud at what has happened and happy that we have been given the trust again” by voters, Tamara van Ark, campaign leader of Rutte’s liberal VVD party said.
With France and Germany facing elections in the months ahead, Rutte hoped to slow the momentum of what he called the “wrong sort of populism” after last’s year British vote to leave the European Union and the election of U.S. President Donald Trump.
“This is a chance for a big democracy like the Netherlands to make a point to stop this toppling over of the domino stones of the wrong sort of populism,” Rutte said after voting.
Wilders had insisted that whatever the result of Wednesday’s election, the kind of populist politics he and others in Europe represent aren’t going away.
“The genie will not go back into the bottle. People feel misrepresented,” he said, predicting the feeling would surface in the French and Germany elections.
But the first indications were still bad.
Rutte has framed the election as a choice between continuity and chaos, portraying himself as a safe custodian of the nation’s economic recovery and casting Wilders as a far-right radical who was unprepared to make tough decisions.
The chance of Wilders becoming prime minister in the Netherlands, where a proportional representation voting system all but guarantees coalition governments, was remote, even if his party had placed first in the election.
All mainstream parties, including Rutte’s VVD, had ruled out working with Wilders and his Party for Freedom.
Wilders’ one-page election manifesto included pledges to close borders to immigrants from Muslim nations, shutter mosques and ban the Qur’an, as well as to take the Netherlands out of the European Union.