As
Netherlands goes to the polls again, Geert Wilders faces isolation
With
other parties refusing to govern with the far-right leader, months of political
deadlock may lie ahead
Jon
Henley and Senay Boztas in Amsterdam
Tue 28
Oct 2025 11.28 GMT
Voters in
the Netherlands return to the polls on Wednesday less than two years after
Geert Wilders led his party to a shock election win that the anti-immigration
agitator could well repeat – but this time, with little chance of his party
ending up in government.
Polls
suggest that Wilders’ far-right Freedom party (PVV) could again finish first in
a vote triggered when he pulled it out of a fractious and ineffectual
four-party rightwing coalition last June in a row over his 10-point plan for a
radical crackdown on refugees.
But such
was the anger sparked by the populist leader’s willingness to torpedo the
government over demands widely judged either unworkable or illegal that all
major political formations have since ruled out joining him in a new coalition.
Under the
Dutch system, every 0.67% of the vote yields one MP. No single party ever wins
a majority, and cabinets – the last three of which have been four-way
coalitions – must win a confidence vote in a parliament of 15 or more parties
before taking office.
That will
make things difficult, if not impossible, for Wilders, who has spent more than
20 years under police protection after threats to his life but now insists he
wants to serve as prime minister at the head of a minority government.
“If the
PVV is the biggest party on Wednesday and you leave us in the lurch and don’t
even want to talk to us or rule with us, then democracy is dead in the
Netherlands,” he told other party leaders in Volendam, a PVV stronghold, at the
weekend. Few seem likely to listen.
Migration
has once again dominated the campaign, with many moderate parties hardening
their rhetoric. Demonstrations have turned violent, including protests outside
asylum-seeker hostels and rioting in The Hague.
But even
if Wilders, who argues that the Netherlands should refuse all asylum requests
and use the army to guard its borders if necessary, does finish first, which is
not certain – the PVV could lose up to a third of its current 37 seats – he is
likely to be shut out of government.
The
outgoing PVV-dominated government is seen by voters as one of the most
ineffective in recent Dutch history, failing to deliver on its key promise of
introducing Europe’s toughest immigration regime and tackle a dire national
housing shortage.
The
parties forecast to make the biggest gains – the centre-right Christian
Democrats (CDA), which polls show may surge to 22 seats from five, and
liberal-progressive D66, on track for 23 from nine – are those that have called
loudest for a return to “responsible” government.
From
left: Frans Timmermans (GroenLinks-PvdA), Henri Bontenbal (CDA), Geert Wilders,
Rob Jetten (D66), and Dilan Yesilgoz (VVD) at a debate last weekend.
Photograph: Remko de Waal/EPA
“What we
have seen is two years of politics of division and chaos,” the CDA leader,
Henri Bontenbal, a youthful former sustainability adviser widely seen as a
potential future prime minister, said last week. “We want to present a politics
of hope and responsibility.”
Pledging
to restore “decency” to Dutch politics, Bontenbal has also said Wilders “does
not defend democracy” and “any coalition with a majority in parliament” would
be democratic: “Winning the election is no guarantee you get to be in
government.”
Campaigning
at Amsterdam central station, D66’s leader, Rob Jetten, was equally upbeat.
“Over the past few years, we’ve heard a lot of negativism from Dutch politics,”
he told the Guardian. “But this is exactly what people are sick and tired of.”
His
party’s resolutely optimistic campaign was “key to winning these elections, and
to defeating Wilders”, Jetten said.
Young D66
campaigners – despite being part of the generation that bears the brunt of the
country’s housing crisis – agreed.
“We live
in a very rich country, we have a very good care system, a good pension system,
good education, relative safety – we can do a lot in this country,” said
Claartje Engelaar.
Floris
van der Valk did not pretend “everything is going perfectly” – but said: “In
the Netherlands we’ve had a government that for two years just argued with
itself; didn’t achieve anything. I think it’s important to have a positive
voice against that: we can solve the problems. And that gives us a lot of
energy.”
The
opposition centre-left alliance of Green Left and the Labour party (GL/PvdA),
led by the former European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans, is
second in the polls behind the PVV and also forecast to improve its seat tally
from 2023.
“The
problem of this country is that in the last couple of years, nothing has
happened,” Timmermans told Dutch media. “No problem was solved, every problem
got even bigger. We need to get this country working again, put it on a social
track.”
Meanwhile,
the four members of the outgoing cabinet – the PVV, liberal-conservative VVD
led by the former prime minister Mark Rutte, the populist Farmer-Citizen
Movement (BBB), and centrist New Social Contract (NSC) – are all forecast to
lose seats.
Quite
what government will emerge from what looks certain to be several months of
highly complex negotiations is almost impossible to predict.
Assuming
parliament votes down any attempt at a Wilders minority administration,
“historically, the biggest party loses the right to form a coalition and it
goes to the second-placed party”, said Claes de Vreese of the University of
Amsterdam.
With 16
parties forecast to make it into parliament, but only six of them with more
than 10 seats, the final outcome is likely to be a broad-based coalition led by
either the centre-left or the centre-right, but containing parties of both
persuasions.
Whatever
its complexion, it will need to act. Despite the campaign’s focus on migration,
voters have consistently said the country’s biggest problem is its housing
shortage, estimated at about 400,000 homes in a country of 18 million people.
Unless
those questions – and other pressing issues, including soaring healthcare costs
– are properly addressed, analysts have warned that the Netherlands’ return to
what looks like being a more commonsense form of government could prove
shortlived.
“There is
a lot of voter dissatisfaction with many other issues as well,” said Léonie de
Jong, a far-right expert at the University of Tübingen. “And Wilders is someone
who can activate this dissatisfaction, and convert it into votes.”
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