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Mark Rutte on course to beat Geert Wilders in Dutch election
Exit
poll suggests voters in Netherlands did not turn to Freedom party,
with Rutte facing choice of coalition options
Jon Henley in The
Hague
@jonhenley
Thursday 16 March
2017 02.15 GMT
The Dutch prime
minister, Mark Rutte, and his liberal VVD party appear to have
comfortably beaten the anti-Islam Freedom party of Geert Wilders to
become the largest in the new parliament, a usually reliable exit
poll suggested.
In the first of
three key European votes this year in which populist parties are
seeking electoral breakthroughs, the VVD lost 10 seats but was still
on course to return 31 MPs to the 150-seat parliament, the Ipsos poll
predicted.
Three other parties
– the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDA), liberal-progressive
D66 and Wilders’ populist PVV – were projected to gain between
four and seven seats each, all finishing up with 19 MPs.
“Our message to
the Netherlands – that we will hold our course, and keep this
country safe, stable and prosperous, got through,” Rutte told a
cheering crowd of supporters at the VVD’s election night party.
The eyes of Europe
had been on the vote, he added. “Many European colleagues have
called me this evening: this was an evening when after Brexit and
Trump, the Netherlands said ‘Stop’ to the wrong sort of
populism.”
Relieved European
politicians were quick to applaud the result. “Congratulations to
the Netherlands for having halted the advance of the far right,”
tweeted Jean-Marc Ayrault, the French foreign minister.
Wilders tweeted that
since the VVD had lost seats and the PVV had gained, his party was
“among the winners”, adding: “If all the losers like the VVD
form a government, we need to have a strong opposition of winners
like the PVV.”
The leftwing
environmentalists of GreenLeft looked the big winners of the night,
as the party was forecast to quadruple its number of MPs to 16. But
the social democratic Labour party (PvdA), Rutte’s outgoing
coalition partner, was forecast to slump to a historic low of nine
seats from 38 in the current parliament.
Mark Rutte says
Dutch people have rejected ‘wrong sort of populism’
The projected result
would leave Rutte with a choice of coalition options, although
coalition-building – with four parties likely to be needed –
could take months: the average in the Netherlands is three months and
the record more than 200 days.
Both Wilders and
Rutte had framed the vote as a barometer for nativist populism.
Casting his ballot in The Hague early on Wednesday, Wilders said:
“Whatever the outcome of the election today, the genie will not go
back into the bottle. People feel misrepresented.”
Wilders, who has
pledged to “de-Islamise” the Netherlands and take it out of the
EU, was widely seen as unlikely to enter government however he fared:
no other main party will work with the PVV in coalition.
The vote was being
keenly watched across the continent. After the UK’s vote to leave
the EU and Trump’s “America first” upset last year, and before
the French presidential elections in May and the German parliamentary
poll in September, a first-place finish for the PVV would have rocked
Europe.
Informal coalition
talks will begin on Thursday, although the process does not formally
get under way until 23 March, when the new parliament sits for the
first time. Rutte will be seeking a majority of 76 seats, probably
with other mainstream parties including the CDA, PvdA and D66.
Turnout was 82%, the
highest for 30 years, the exit poll showed, with 25% of voters in
Amsterdam casting their ballot by midday, nearly double the figure in
the previous 2012 election.
Rutte was also
thought to have benefited from his cool handling of a fierce row with
Turkey over the government’s refusal to allow Turkish ministers to
address rallies of Dutch Turks before a referendum next month on
plans to grant Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, sweeping
new powers.
Erdoğan has reacted
furiously to the Dutch decision, repeatedly accusing the government
of behaving like Nazis, suspending high-level political contacts,
threatening trade sanctions, and claiming the Netherlands was guilty
of the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995.
Analysis Dutch
general election: a finger in the wind, not a litmus test
After Brexit and
Trump’s triumph – and with Marine Le Pen making waves – some
saw this contest as continuity versus chaos. But the pattern did not
fit
Read more
In a campaign
dominated by Wilders’ core themes of immigration and integration,
the row “allowed Rutte to show himself as a statesman – and to
send a Turkish minister packing”, said André Krouwel, a political
scientist at Amsterdam’s Free University.
In a possibly
unrelated incident, two big Dutch voting information websites were
targeted by a cyberattack on Wednesday. Several Twitter accounts
including those of the European parliament, the German newspaper Die
Welt and Amnesty International were also hacked, apparently by
pro-Erdoğan activists.
Voting earlier in
The Hague, Sonja van Spronsen, a 45-year-old office worker, said she
hoped the next government could produce a “good, convivial
Netherlands. Not just arguing and complaining but with a good
positive vision of how to move forward that we can all get behind.”
Ben Baks, a
60-year-old civil servant, said he had voted GreenLeft but wanted to
see a rainbow coalition combining parties from left and right.
“Whatever happens, we need a country that’s governable,” he
said. “We need to send out a strong signal to other European
countries.”
But Donny Bonsink, a
24-year-old chef, was for Wilders. “Islamisation in the Netherlands
has to stop,” he said. “We’ve had governments trying to make
immigration work for 40 years and all it’s brought us is problems.
People are angry.”
Wilders
fica abaixo do esperado nas eleições na Holanda
Primeiro-ministro
Mark Rutte é o claro vencedor, enquanto o segundo lugar era
disputado pela extrema-direita, democratas-cristãos e liberais. A
esquerda tem uma enorme subida e os sociais-democratas uma grande
queda
MARIA JOÃO
GUIMARÃES em Amesterdão 15 de Março de 2017, 21:53
A descida dos
grandes partidos é a principal novidade das eleições na Holanda: o
vencedor, do primeiro-ministro Mark Rutte (centro-direita), conseguiu
cerca de 20% dos votos e apenas 31 deputados num Parlamento de 150
segundo as sondagens à boca das urnas divulgadas pela estação de
televisão NOS. A grande subida da extrema-direita de Geert Wilders
acabou por ser menor do que o antecipado, e segundo as sondagens à
boca das urnas, o seu Partido da Liberdade surgia empatado com dois
outros, o CDA (democratas-cristãos) e o D66 (liberal), todos com uma
projecção de 19 deputados cada.
Outro partido que se
destaca é a Esquerda Verde (GL), do jovem Jesse Klaver, que aos 30
anos consegue levar o partido ao seu melhor resultado – de 4
deputados no Parlamento anterior, o partido de esquerda deverá
conseguir 16, um claro quinto lugar.
Para formar Governo
o próximo primeiro-ministro precisa de uma maioria de 76 deputados,
ou seja, quatro partidos no mínimo mas eventualmente mais,
dependendo das possibilidades de harmonização dos programas de cada
um e de quanto está disposto a conceder.
Durante meses, o
político de extrema-direita Geert Wilders esteve a liderar as
sondagens, com valores que chegaram aos 20% das intenções de voto,
graças à descida vertiginosa dos partidos do Governo, o Partido da
Liberdade e Democracia, do primeiro-ministro Mark Rutte
(centro-direita) e o Partido Trabalhista (PvdA). Mas nas últimas
duas semanas Wilders desceu e Rutte subiu, e nas últimas sondagens
da véspera das eleições os números eram tão díspares que
ninguém se atrevia Wilders reagiu aos resultados no Twitter: "Rutte
não se viu ainda livre de mim".
Segundo analistas, a
posição de Rutte face à Turquia – recusando a vinda do ministro
dos Negócios Estrangeiros para fazer campanha – deu-lhe mais força
- assim o partido do primeiro-ministro parece ter-se saído menos mal
do que o antecipado. Apesar dessa recuperação, fica com menos dez
deputados. A queda que se confirma é a do Partido Trabalhista
(PvdA), que terá conseguido eleger apenas 9 deputados (de 38 no
Parlamento cessante). Parceiros de Rutte no Governo, terão pago a
participação no programa de austeridade, contrária aos valores do
partido.
Os liberais do D66,
cujo líder, Alexander Pechtold, se assumiu como um claro opositor a
Wilders, acabam empatados com este. Conseguem mais 7 deputados,
enquanto o partido de Wilders obtém apenas mais 4 do que na última
votação (e menos do que em 2010, quando chegou a ter 24 deputados).
Entram ainda vários
outros partidos no Parlamento, do Partido dos Animais ao Denk,
formado por imigrantes, mas que tem mostrado algumas posições
pró-Presidente turco Erdogan, o que o tornou polémico.
A participação nas
eleições, feitas a uma quarta-feira por várias razões, incluindo
a objecção dos protestantes ortodoxos a que se realize ao domingo,
foi maior do que nas anteriores: 81% dos eleitores participaram. A
Holanda facilita muito a votação, permitindo que o eleitor vote
pessoalmente ou entregue o seu voto a outra pessoa, desde que
identificada. O boletim de voto é individual e recebido pelo
correio.
Dutch
general election: a finger in the wind, not a litmus test
After
Brexit and Trump’s triumph – and with Marine Le Pen making waves
– some saw this contest as continuity versus chaos. But the pattern
did not fit
Jon Henley European
affairs correspondent
@jonhenley
Wednesday 15 March
2017 22.15 GMT Last modified on Thursday 16 March 2017 01.17 GMT
One down, two to go.
As the first major election since Britain opted to leave the EU and
the US elected Donald Trump, the Dutch general election was widely
seen as a litmus test for the strength of anti-establishment populism
ahead of similar European votes this year.
A win for Geert
Wilders’ anti-Islam, anti-EU Freedom party was to have been the
third domino to fall in a series that could include a win for Marine
Le Pen’s Front National in France, a strong showing by the
anti-migrant AfD in Germany – and the possible disintegration of
the EU.
The Dutch prime
minister, Mark Rutte, cast the Dutch election in that light this
week, saying that – following the upsets of Brexit and Trump – he
saw it as the “quarter-final” in a five-round competition, in
which “the semi-finals are the French elections, and the final the
German election”.
It suited Rutte to
frame the election as a head-to-head battle between his centre-right,
liberal VVD and Wilders’ PVV, allowing him to present it as a clash
between status quo and populism, continuity and chaos.
But there are
several reasons why the pattern did not really fit – and why a
Wilders victory, while undeniably a powerful symbolic blow, would not
necessarily have set in motion a chain of events to threaten the
bloc’s survival.
The Dutch poll
differed from Trump’s election and the Brexit referendum. Those
were one-on-one, winner-take-all contests for which the victor needed
50% – or in the US poll, very nearly 50% – of the vote.
In the Netherlands,
28 parties were standing, six of which – according to exit polls –
were projected to end up with 10 or more MPs in the 150-seat
parliament.
Rutte’s VVD was on
course to be by far the largest party on 31 seats, with Wilders’
PVV trailing on 19.
The result was
always going to be a coalition of at least four, possibly five,
parties that will take months to form and have to govern by
compromise and consensus. And all main parties had vowed not to work
with Wilders.
So even if the PVV
had ended up as the largest party, it would almost certainly have
been locked out of government.
Even if it had not
been, in order to pass new legislation it would have needed, as well
as the lower house, the Dutch senate on board – where it currently
has nine out of 75 seats.
Wilders may prompt
comparisons with Trump and Brexit – in hairstyle, campaign slogan
(“Take our country back”), presentation and predilection for
Twitter – but it was never clear how much of his programme he could
have implemented in practice.
Nor were the Dutch
likely to vote to leave the EU any time soon. The prospect of a
“Nexit” referendum had gained currency abroad, but the other
parties would not have backed it and there is no evidence a majority
of voters would either.
The far right in
France and Germany would, certainly, have hailed a Wilders win as a
nativist, anti-establishment triumph.
But despite loudly
welcoming both Brexit and Trump as the beginning of a “patriotic
revolution”, the Front National in France and AfD in Germany saw no
improvement in their polling afterwards.
The French
presidential election, taking place over two rounds in April and May,
resembles the UK and US votes more closely: unlike the Netherlands,
this will be a one-on-one, winner-takes-all contest – and the
French are electing a president, not a parliament.
Though wildly
unpredictable, the second round runoff looks set to pit Le Pen
against the centrist independent Emmanuel Macron. Current polling
gives Macron a 20-point lead, but a Le Pen victory remains very
possible.
That would prove a
seismic shock, not least to markets which fear the far-right
candidate will deliver on her campaign promises: taking France out of
the euro and putting the terms of a “new relationship” with the
EU to a referendum.
Neither the EU nor
the euro would survive that. Crucially, however, the French will also
be electing their parliament in June – which could make it
difficult, if not impossible, for a President Le Pen to organise a
Frexit referendum.
France’s
constitution contains the phrase: “The Republic is part of the
European Union.”
Changing that
constitution requires the approval of both the lower and upper
houses, plus a referendum on the change.
At present, the
Front National has two of the 577 MPs in the lower house. For a
majority, it would need to win 287 more in June’s parliamentary
elections. (It also has two senators in the upper house, out of 348.)
Moreover, while a
French president can in principle call a referendum without the
backing of congress, he or she cannot do so without the permission of
France’s constitutional court – which would be unlikely to give
it.
And even if, against
all odds, Le Pen did manage to call a referendum on France’s exit,
nothing yet suggests a majority of voters would back it (or, indeed a
move to abandon the euro).
It is difficult to
underestimate the strength of the psychological blow a Le Pen victory
would deliver to Europe.
The bloc would be
rocked to its foundations. But it is unclear how many of her EU plans
she will be able to put into practice.
In Germany,
similarly, the advance of the rightwing, populist Alternative für
Deutschland, riding high on on Europe’s migrant crisis, once looked
unstoppable. But it peaked at 15% in September and is now down to 8%.
On that form, while
it may well win seats in the federal parliament for the first time,
its chances of taking part in coalition talks in September look slim
– especially since the larger centrist parties have refused to work
with it.
However many – if
any – dominos fall this year, the end of the liberal world order
may not quite be nigh.
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