Don’t be too relieved: Dutch election result not ‘end of populism’ or far-right

Despite the collective sigh of relief in headlines across the globe, the far-right in The Netherlands is far from defeated. If anything, it’s more established than ever, even as its peroxide-blonde figurehead faced electoral rebuke.

Hailed as victory for the centre, and with results still trickling in, the Dutch parliamentary elections on the surface might show a shift away from Geert Wilder’s Freedom Party, yet below lurks the fact that the number of seats going to the far-right block remains unchanged.

And worse, parties deemed ‘centrist’ actually shifted further right on issues like migration and healthcare to accommodate the uncomfortable reality that the Dutch electorate has been inured to performative cruelty by consecutive decades of public Muslim-bashing and asylum-blaming.

As far-right researcher Cas Mudde remarked on Bluesky on Thursday (30 October), echoed by fellow far-right researcher Sarah de Lange; looking at the various electoral blocks (Left,Right, Far-Right) nothing changed on aggregate, with the far-right being only further normalised and consolidated across more parties.

In less academic language: the number of people who choose to vote far-right remains unchanged (48 vs 46), and they have more flavours of far-right to choose from. 

Pepsi or Coke?

For your classical, xenophobe far-right, Wilders has got you. For pretty much the same classic far-right, but wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a slim suit, go with JA21’s Joost Eerdmans. For the agri-loving far-right, the Farmer-Citizen-Movement’s (BBB) Caroline van der Plas. If you doubt the moon landing ever took place (and dislike foreigners), the revamped Forum for Democracy (FvD). 

Yes, there is now a possibility to have a coalition most likely led by liberal centrists D66, but it will be supported by on the one side the Christian Democrats (CDA), who adopted a stricter stance on migration in the campaign, and precipitously dropped versus earlier polls after their young charismatic leader Henri Bontenbal casually admitted they supported schools’ freedom to bar expressions of homosexuality. 

And on the other side there is the rightwing liberal VVD, who under the leadership of Dylan Yesilgöz aped the far-right on migration to the point where they thought they might dominate a new election on the platform (they did not). 

All of the above parties, by the way, got at least one ‘red flag’ in a report made by the Dutch bar association testing their adherence to the rule of law in their election programme. 

Another bucket of cold water over the jubilant vibe is that these three will not have a majority in either the parliament or senate. 

This leaves three options, two of which are pretty bad and one which most likely will not happen.

The first is extending the coalition with horn-rimmed far-right JA21 and agri-far-right BBB. An unlikely option, and, even if they do get the prime minister’s seat, very unattractive for the green-liberal platform Jetten ran on.

The second would be a minority government of the three parties, that seeks majorities for individual proposals. And we all know how this construction works out for the European Parliament – in the end, the conservative block (CDA + VVD), ends up coercing the left with the threat of siding with the superabundant far-right for even more extreme conservative, nativist or deregulatory policy. 

(Remember, the EP election results in 2024 were similarly hailed with a ‘centre holds’ narrative?)

The third option is just as unlikely as the first; adding in no-longer-party-leader Frans Timmermans’ left Labour/Greens into the mix. The VVD however, pretty much exclusively ran on the platform of keeping the left out of the government. 

If Timmermans’ exit changes this position is unclear, but the revulsion for their ideas was so explicit during the campaign, it would be political suicide for the VVD. Then again, their electorate seems to not care they were at the helm of a series of failed governments, as long as they leave the mortgage-interest tax rebate alone.

In the meanwhile, news media seems intent on focusing on whether liberal D66 or far-right PVV get the most seats – even if the result does not matter at all for two reasons.

First, the Dutch electoral system is one of coalitions and parliamentary majorities. The ‘winner’ does not automatically win anything – even if he does squeeze ahead, Geert Wilders does not become prime minister.

Second, the governmental formation process is based on a bunch of unwritten conventions (which is probably why they always take so godforsaken long) that could even see a completely party-unaffiliated prime minister (remember Dick Schoof? Even I hardly do, and I live in the Netherlands) take the seat. 

While that is out of the question now, taking the top job comes with a bunch of concessions to other parties, especially if the mandate is as meagre (D66’s victory rests on having four seats more than the next party, VVD) as it is. 

So even if Jetten becomes the new, young and energetic prime minister, it’s totally unclear what he’s going to have to give up to get the position. Green dreams perhaps? A pro-European attitude? Nobody knows. 

However the government coalition turns out, I’m sorry to say it’s definitely too soon to be taking any comfort out of the Dutch election results – there is no big return to the centre. 

Even after one of the most unproductive and disastrous governments in decades failed – twice – it’s the far-right that holds. 

And once again, the Netherlands will be the world’s experiment to see which particular strand of far-right thrives in the geopolitical petri dish we’re all living in right now.

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