Dutch voters eye return to centre after far-right experiment fails

Dutch voters are expected to return to the center in elections scheduled for this week, after a two-year experiment with a far-right-led government ended in chaos.

The Party for Freedom (PVV) led by anti-Islam leader Geert Wilders came to power in 2023 and is likely to top the polls again on Wednesday. But after the Freedom Party-led coalition collapsed in June, two major parties vowed to prevent him from joining any future government.

The conservative Christian Democrats and the center-left Green Labor Party, which have chosen to remain in opposition, are tied for second place in the opinion polls, with both of them hoping to secure the premiership.

“It’s very close,” said Sarah de Lange, a political science professor at the University of Amsterdam. But voters are looking for some stability after the chaos.”

After Geert Wilders was deemed too extreme to serve as prime minister – and stepped aside to allow other parties to form a coalition with his own – voters are now faced with a choice between two traditional figures.

One is Labor leader Frans Timmermans, 64, a former European commissioner and Dutch foreign minister who merged Labor with the Greens to boost their electoral chances.

The other is the untested Henry Pontenball. The 42-year-old Christian Democrat entered politics just four years ago, and opinion polls show him as the people’s choice as prime minister. A reserved and studious father of two, he had lived in Rotterdam all his life.

De Lange described the CDA leader as a throwback to the solid premiership of Jan Peter Balkenende, who led the country from 2002 to 2010. Bontenball is seen “as a trusted and respected person who will lead a stable coalition that will last for more than two years.”

The Freedom Party gets about 20 percent of voting intentions, followed by the CDA and the Green-Labour Party on 15 percent, according to a poll by Tom Loewers of Leiden University.

But stable alliances are difficult to find. The Dutch parliament’s lower house of parliament has 150 seats, and 15 parties routinely meet the 0.67 percent threshold required to become members of parliament. They range from the pro-immigrant Denk Party to the far-right pro-Russian Forum for democracy.

Among the eclectic areas are an over-50s party and an animal rights party. They recently split over European defense spending – those who opposed increased spending formed the new Peace for Animals Party.

New parties often do well. In 2024, the centre-right New Social Contract – an offshoot of the CDA – came in fourth place with 19 seats. The populist Agrarian Citizen Movement won eight votes, and both entered government with the Freedom Party and a fourth partner, the right-wing liberal VVD.

They prevented Wilders from becoming prime minister, but supported his choice – Dick Schoof, a former intelligence chief with no political experience. Schoff struggled to broker a settlement between the divided coalition members.

In June, Wilders withdrew his party from the coalition after his partners rejected his 10-point plan for migration, which called for deploying the army to guard the border, closing refugee centers and repatriating many Syrian refugees.

Elections were called and shortly after the National Security Council also withdrew due to political differences. It may not win any seats this time, and the farmers’ party is expected to get only three seats.

Opinion polls range between 14 and 19 votes for D66, a progressive liberal party led by former climate minister Rob Gitten. The VVD party, whose former leader Mark Rutte ran the country from 2010 to 2023 before becoming Secretary General of NATO, fell to 12 votes to 16 votes.

Tom Berendsen, leader of the Christian Democratic Alliance in the European Parliament, said that after two years of haphazard policies and battles with the EU, it is no wonder voters want relief. He attributed his party’s recovery to the years it spent in the opposition and the return to its roots, after suffering a historic defeat in the 2023 elections.

“We have problems that the government has not solved for the last two years because they have been fighting each other,” Berendsen said.

A former energy consultant, Bontenball focuses on competent management and bottom-up solutions, empowering people to improve their neighborhoods and communities.

“People in Bontenball are looking for stability, decent politics, and respectful debate,” Berendsen said.

However, about 50% of voters say they are undecided.

De Lange said there are two possible coalitions. One is a largely centrist grouping that includes the Greens, Labour, CDA, D66 and possibly the VVD.

The other is a more right-wing coalition between the Christian Democrats, VVD, D66, the Farmers’ Party, and JA21, an upstart populist party expected to gain about 12 seats. The talks may take several months.

The three biggest challenges — lack of affordable housing, the cost of health care, and dealing with immigration — many voters blame on asylum seekers. Even Timmermans wants to cap the number of arrivals, and several parties support stricter deportations of migrants.

If Timmermans becomes prime minister, the former EU climate czar will be one of only five socialist leaders in the 27-nation bloc, which has shifted to the right on immigration, deregulation and reducing climate ambition.

“It is very tragic,” said a veteran Dutch official in Brussels. “He returned to the Netherlands to find that it was no longer the country he left behind. If he returns to the European summit arena, he will find that Brussels has changed too.”