The Dutch go to the polls on Wednesday November 22nd to decide who will succeed Mark Rutte, who has been in power since 2010. The Liberal leader ended his coalition in July after renewed disputes between his Freedom and Democracy Party (VVD, liberal) and his three allies. This time the focus was on asylum policy, one of the main topics of the campaign that was coming to an end.
This centered a lot on Pieter Omtzigt and his party, the New Social Contract, and ends with an uncertainty: whether the dissident Christian Democratic Party, proponent of “new governance,” has long been at the front of the stage and at the helm At the top of the numerous polls that shaped the election campaign, three of his rivals appeared capable of stealing pole position from him on Wednesday. Among them – and this is the most unexpected – is Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), the far-right group he founded in 2006.
Opinion polls, which can be published up to the day before the election in the Netherlands, suggest that the Islamophobic populist MP could well be the other spoilsport in a decidedly very indecisive election. The latest poll, published by Ipsos on Tuesday November 21st, gave him 27 out of 150 MPs in the Second Chamber. 29 seats would go to Dilan Yesilgöz, the current justice minister, who succeeds Mark Rutte at the top of the Liberal list, and 24 to Frans Timmermans, the former EU commissioner, at the top of the left-wing list of Liberal Social Democrats and Ecologists . Mr Omtzigt would win 19 seats, far from the expected performance.
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On Tuesday, just over 40% of voters said they were confident about their vote, while the rest said they had not yet finally decided on one of the 26 parties in the race. Enough, perhaps, to reserve more surprises.
Timmermans’ call for a “useful vote”
During a very active election campaign, Mr. Wilders, who at 60 undoubtedly sees his last chance of participating in government, moderated his most radical statements on the Koran – which he wanted to ban – and mosques. – which he wanted to close. This time he chose to defend a program with a strong social connotation. Under the title “The Dutch First”, priority attention is now being paid to the health sector, an increase in the number of places in retirement homes and an active fight for purchasing power.
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