Europe | Right turn

Geert Wilders’s election win leaves the Dutch in an awful quandary

Will the cordon sanitaire against the far right hold?

Dutch far-right politician and leader of the PVV party, Geert Wilders.
Image: Reuters
|Scheveningen

ON NOVEMBER 22nd voters awarded a whopping 37 of the 150 seats in the Dutch parliament to the anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, anti-EU Party for Freedom (PVV), led by Geert Wilders. It was a bombshell, putting the PVV far ahead of any other outfit, and it leaves the Netherlands in a quandary. For years, most major parties have ruled out a coalition with Mr Wilders. But the results make it nearly impossible to form a government without him. The Netherlands, whose politicians were among the first to turn to anti-Muslim populism in the early 2000s, may now get its first populist prime minister.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Right turn”

Europe November 25th 2023

From the November 25th 2023 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition
Reuse this content

Discover more

French President Macron visits the Notre Dame Cathedral, in Paris

Emmanuel Macron shows off the gloriously restored Notre Dame

Five years after it was gutted by fire, the cathedral is more beautiful than ever

An illustration of Ursula von der Leyen bending down in front of a door. On the door is a sign that reads 'Danger! Hard right, keep locked'. In the bottom of the door is a cat flap. An arm is reaching out of the cat flap as she reaches down to take the hand.

Ursula von der Leyen has a new doctrine for handling the hard right

The boss of the European Commission embarks on a second term

Marine Le Pen (L) arrives at the Paris criminal courthouse for her trial on suspicion of embezzlement of European public funds

Marine Le Pen spooks the bond markets

She threatens to bring down the French government, but also faces a possible ban from politics

The maths of Europe’s military black hole 

It needs to spend to defend, but voters may balk

Ukraine’s warriors brace for a Kremlin surge in the south 

Vladimir Putin’s war machine is pushing harder and crushing Ukrainian morale

Vladimir Putin fires a new missile to amplify his nuclear threats

The attack on Ukraine is part of a new era of missile warfare