Confidence is high among far-right after Netherlands poll

Almost four months since the Dutch people voted in national elections on November 22, there is still no government there. The stalemate has meant results in complex coalition negotiations are proving elusive for a nation that prides itself on consensus-building and compromise.

But now the shock winner in that vote, Geert Wilders, of the hard right Freedom Party, appears to have injected new hope into the turgid talks by publicly conceding he cannot become prime minister.

“I can only become prime minister if all parties in the coalition support it. That wasn’t the case,” he wrote on social media this week. He then added some high-flown stuff about love of country and its voters being “more important than my own position”.

That concession appeared inevitable, though Wilders did get almost a quarter of the votes and netted 37 out of the 150 seats in parliament. The other parties had already broken a taboo in place since 2012 of no-truck with Wilders’s Freedom Party and their talks engagement was a de facto acceptance of some role in government for the hard right.

Prominent politicians in all parties have long argued good boycott grounds as his stances conflict with the Netherlands’ long tradition of tolerance. In 2016, he was convicted for “collective discrimination” following a rally at which he led calls for fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands, and he has long advocated banning the Koran, curbing mosque construction and blocking Muslim immigrants.

He has notably softened his approach, pledging to support the Netherlands’ constitution and practices. This change of tack has led some wags to dub him “Geert Milders”, but his core views remain despite a change in presentation.

Now aged 60, he has a Catholic background and is from the south-eastern small city of Venlo, close to the German border. He has credited his strong opposition to Islam with early travels in the Middle East, including a stint at an Israeli kibbutz. His views have attracted death threats, and he and his family live under government-provided armed guard.

Wilders’s latest move does increase the chances of a right-wing coalition, with his party having a role. Some of the other party blocs still fancy their chances of coalition-making, but may ultimately lack the numbers.

Increasingly, observers suggest the government may not be a traditional majority coalition of the biggest parties forging an agreed programme to govern.

Up to now, Wilders has been negotiating with the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, which governed for the past 13 years; the Farmer-Citizen Movement, a populist pro-farmer party; and New Social Contract, a new centrist party.

These four have 88 parliament seats, which would be a comfortable majority, yet there are increasing suggestions that they could better deal together via a different government format.

This would involve a cabinet that includes political outsiders, or technocratic experts, a format the Netherlands used once before in the mid-1970s during the oil crisis.

This structure is closer to the French model, with more distance between the cabinet and the parliament. It is too soon to predict the Netherlands’ new prime minister, but it could be an experienced former politician who would advance a right-wing agenda.

Wilders will probably continue as his party’s leader in parliament, where he is noted as a very able operator. His Freedom Party, founded in 2006, has avoided the disunity and break-ups that dogged similar hard-right parties in mainland Europe, a key element of his success that combines with tapping into popular frustration over housing, services and the cost of living.

Coalition negotiations will continue in the coming weeks and probably even months, but some hours after his dramatic announcement stepping back from the prime minister’s job, Wilders was back on social media stating his future ambitions, doubtless to assuage core supporters.

“And don’t forget: I will still become the prime minister of the Netherlands,” he wrote. “With the support of even more Dutch people. If not tomorrow, then the day after.”