Geert Wilders convinced Dutch voters the far right could run the country. What is their verdict now? | World news

KWhat happens when you bring far-right populists to power? Will those entrusted with ministerial responsibilities be able to offer the radical solutions they so often preach? Or do they self-destruct, sooner or later, when faced with complex policy dilemmas, leaving an even greater mess in their wake?

That was the question Dutch voters had to weigh in on Wednesday, after a tumultuous two-year experience in which Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party (PVV) entered a right-wing coalition for the first time to govern the Netherlands.

At a time when populist parties are vying for power in much of Europe, including France, Germany and the UK, but may have reached their limits in Hungary, the Dutch general election could provide a guide for Europe more broadly.

Months of negotiations may be required before the exact shape of the next multi-party ruling coalition becomes clear. But exit polls show the far-right is disappointed as the centrist party D66 is on track to make big gains and is likely to take the lead in forming the next government. Mainstream parties promised during the campaign that they would exclude Wilders from the government in any case, regardless of the PVV’s final score.

This does not mean that the “Dutch is full” rhetoric of the far right is invalid. As Cas Mudde, a Dutch political scientist who specializes in political extremism, noted in the Guardian, the firewall threat around Wilders stemmed not from disgust at his ideology but from anger at his “immature” stance and his withdrawal from government after 11 months. That’s what triggered this week’s general election.

Moreover, as the political center shifted to the right, his anti-immigrant themes were adopted with gusto. Even left-wing politicians repeated the scapegoating of refugees during the campaign. No wonder fear is spreading in immigrant and minority communities, as Ashifa Kassam reports.

‘I’m shouting from outside to inside’

However, the experience with the far-right administration on issues that voters said were most important to them, such as housing, healthcare and the asylum system, was objectively a complete fiasco. PVV has nothing to show for it.

“The liberal-populist-far-right coalition has failed to solve any of these challenges and, in some cases, has worsened them,” says Armida van Rij, senior research fellow at the Center for European Reform think tank.

Anger over the country’s housing shortage – including among young voters – helped Wilders win a landslide victory in the last election in 2023. Even though two years have passed since the crisis, no solution has been found and more than 80,000 people need homes. It has become a bigger stick with which to beat asylum seekers accused of jumping waiting lists.

“The coalition has done nothing to address the housing crisis; there are no other new laws, reforms or achievements to speak of,” says Koen Vossen, political historian and author of The Power of Populism: Geert Wilders and the Freedom Party in the Netherlands. “You can drive faster than the 100 km/h speed limit on a short highway in the country. That’s the only thing I can think of that they’ve achieved.”

Vossen thinks the fiery Wilders are unfit to govern. Although he has been a force in Dutch politics for 20 years, his comfort zone is “shouting from the outside in”.

“He has no organization, because he doesn’t want to. He made poor ministerial appointments because he didn’t trust anyone; he had to choose party loyalists, but they were amateurs, with no skills or experience.”

give us boring

So, after such an epic failure, do voters conclude that populist ideologues can’t solve their problems?

According to Mudde, this question overlooks the broader impact Wilders has had. “Whatever the final outcome, one thing is already clear,” he wrote for the Guardian’s opinion pages. “Despite its apparent failure to govern the Netherlands, the far right has a magnetic hold on the country.”

He blamed this bottleneck of ideas on a media that had become “hostage” to the far right and a political class all too willing to “normalize” the populist agenda. And as Heather Stewart points out in a piece about populists crashing global economies, failures aren’t always punished at the ballot box.

But ahead of Wednesday’s election, pollsters underlined a desire for a return to stable, middle-of-the-road politics. “You hear this a lot,” Vossen says. “Give us back the old boring Netherlands with a stable government. Give us stable people who can do things.”

Christian Democrat leader Henri Bontenbal even made his campaign pitch “boring.”

Trust is destroyed

At the same time, Wilders’ failures are being used by newer copycat, far-right parties to promise that with better organization they can achieve the PVV’s goals.

Worse still, perhaps many Wilders supporters blame his enemies, not incompetence. “There is a widespread belief among his core supporters that he is being blocked by the courts, leftist judges, the deep state or someone else,” Vossen says. “This blame game is very Trumpian.”

Excluding it from future coalitions could also be used as a weapon by the PVV to deny the popular will and further erode trust in democracy.

Vossen says the Wilders experiment caused lasting damage. “The Netherlands has always been a society of high trust, and our politics reflects that. But the last two years have destroyed a lot of that trust. When people look at the radical right, they see that yes, it has failed, but it makes them even more dissatisfied with the system.”

“Anti-institutionalism used to be rare in the Netherlands. But now it is common. The foundations of democracy are being questioned. This is very disturbing.”