Dutch election exit polls show major victory for far-right

Geert Wilders, a far-right, anti-Islam populist, appears to be heading for a major parliamentary election victory in the Netherlands, which would mark one of the biggest election upsets for Dutch politics in decades, according to local news reports.

An exit poll published by national broadcaster NOS showed Geert Wilders is expected to reach 35 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament, more than double the number of seats he reached in 2021. He is followed by Frans Timmermans’s Labour/Green Left combination, who is 10 seats behind Wilders.

If elected, Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom, known as PVV, would be able to begin talks of a new ruling coalition and could become the Netherlands’s first hard-right prime minister, according to The Associated Press (AP).

Before he can take over as prime minister, Wilders would need to form a coalition government, which could prove challenging without mainstream party support. The AP reported Wilders toned down some of his stances during the final weeks of the campaign, a likely appeal to opposing parties.

Wilders has spent an estimated 25 years in Dutch politics without holding office, and he has been compared to former President Trump, Reuters reported.

Wilders’s platform discusses the potential for a referendum on the Netherlands opting out of the European Union along with stopping the acceptance of asylum-seekers at Dutch borders. The AP reported Wilders said he is on a campaign to stop the “asylum tsunami,” in an apparent reference to the migration problems facing the country.

“The Dutch will be No. 1 again,” Wilders said, per the AP. “The people must get their nation back.”

He is also an advocate of the “de-Islamization” of the Netherlands and has called for the barring of mosques and Qurans, the Muslim holy book, according to Reuters. Wilders has called the prophet Muhammad a “pedophile” and labeled Islam as a “fascist ideology” and “backward religion.”

His views have prompted death threats and violent protests and caused him to live under heavy police protection in recent years, Reuters reported.

The exit poll, which was published as voting ended in the general election, has a margin of error of one seat, meaning parties can get a seat more or less in the final result than the poll shows, according to NOS. A final result could come as soon as Thursday, the national broadcaster said.