The Dutch will go to the polls on the 29th of October for the third time in less than five years to elect a new government after the right-wing leader toppled the current government in June, Reuters reports.
The election comes after far-right leader Geert Wilders unexpectedly broke up the right-wing coalition dominated by his Party for Freedom (PVV) in June, accusing his coalition partners of not supporting his plan to end asylum-seeker migration.
Wilders won a surprise election in 2023, but he did not become prime minister or gain the right to form a government. The government led by independent Prime Minister Dick Schoof, meanwhile, failed to achieve its broad political goals.
Polls will remain open until 9 a.m. local time, when preliminary results will be announced. Votes are being counted manually, with preliminary results expected overnight. Parties need about 70,000 votes to win a seat in parliament. In 2023, 15 parties entered parliament, and about the same number is expected this year. There are 27 parties on the electoral list.
Wilder’s PVV has been leading the polls since the government collapsed, but its support has waned in recent weeks.
The PVV is expected to win 25 to 29 seats in parliament, down from 37 in 2023. Current polls suggest the left-wing GroenLinks/PvdA and the center-left D66 could win 25 seats, while the center-right Christian Democrats (CDA) could win 19.
The right-wing VVD has lost its lead since the departure of current NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte from local politics. After a chaotic coalition with the PVV, the VVD is currently projected to win 15 seats, down from its relatively poor showing in 2023, when it won 24 seats in parliament.
Since no party usually wins a clear majority, the Netherlands is always governed by coalitions that take months to form. This time too, coalition-building is expected to be difficult, as several of the leading parties have already ruled out working with each other, and voters are also divided. This makes Wilders’ chances of becoming prime minister particularly slim, as the CDA, VVD and PvdA have already ruled him out.
Polls show that without the CDA’s support, Wilders has no chance of securing a majority,
meaning that either the party that comes in second after the PVV or the party that manages to surpass Wilders’ political power will form the government. However, even in that case, the chances of a quick coalition are low.
There is no set time frame for forming a coalition, and parties can change their minds about potential partners. The last three governments took more than seven months to form. Rutte’s last coalition, from March 2021 to January 2022, took 299 days to form and collapsed after just two years.
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