Dutch MP Geert Wilder talks to the press after claiming victory in European Parliament elections Thursday following exit polls showing his far-right anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim Freedom Party is on track to win seats for the first time. Photo by Remko de Waal/EPA-EFE
Exit polls in the Netherlands of voters casting ballots in elections for the European Parliament suggest pro-Europe parties have outperformed Geert Wilders’ far-right anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim Freedom Party.
Wilders’ Freedom PVV party is still on track to win seven of the 31 seats allotted to the Netherlands in the 720-seat parliament, compared with none in 2019, behind the rival GreenLeft Labor Alliance which is predicted to win eight seats. Advertisement
Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy is predicted to shed one of its five seats.
Thursday’s ballot kicked off four days of voting by 373 million eligible voters across 27 European Union countries to elect Members of the European Parliament, choosing among candidates selected by the parties in their own country.
Friday was the turn of Irish and Czech voters, followed by Italy, Slovenia and Latvia on Saturday and Germany, France and Spain and the rest of the bloc Sunday, with provisional results due late Sunday after the last polls close in Italy.
Hailing the “beautiful result,” the 60-year-old MP proclaimed the PVV “by far the largest winner this evening” and insisted the party could still emerge victorious when the final results are declared after all the ballots across the EU are complete. Advertisement
The PVV had been banking on a major bounce from the governing coalition Wilders managed to cobble together, after six months of wrangling, following its clean sweep of a general election in November.
“The West is waking up, and you see parties like mine growing in popularity all over the European Union. The people are waking up, and I hope they stay awake,” said Wilders who has previously campaigned to quit the EU but has abandoned his push for a “leave” referendum in favor of tackling its “overreach” from the inside.
“The next few days are crucial for the future of Europe. Will it be with more borders and immigration, or will it be a lot tougher with not an expansion of the European Union but returning legislative powers to the capitals? And that is something we are aiming for.”
Frans Timmermans, the leader of the rival GreenLeft Labor Alliance, also claimed the predicted result as a win, seizing on the fact the center-left was beating out the populist right.
“Pro-European parties in the Netherlands did very well in this election, which sends a clear signal to the rest of Europe that there is no necessity to work with the radical right,” said the former First Vice President of the European Commission. Advertisement
However, the Dutch exit polls — if correct — signal a rising tide of right-wing populism in Europe heralding an important political shift with the potential to fundamentally impact EU policies on asylum, immigration and climate.
