Dutch voters head to polls amid political infighting
THE HAGUE, Netherlands—Polls opened across the Netherlands on Wednesday in a close-run snap election called after anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders brought down the last four-party coalition in a dispute over a crackdown on immigration.
In The Hague, a steady stream of commuters stopped to vote at a polling station set up at the city’s central railway station, next to the Dutch parliament building.
Opinion polls forecast a close finish with Wilders’ Party for Freedom holding a narrow lead over a group of more moderate parties including the center-left bloc of the Labor Party and Green Left, and the center-right Christian Democrats.
‘Tense’
“It hasn’t been this tense for a long time,” Wilders said late Tuesday on Dutch news show “Nieuwsuur” after leaders held a final debate.
Polls close at 9 p.m. and broadcasters publish an initial exit poll immediately followed by an update a half hour later.
The Dutch system of proportional representation all but guarantees that no single party can win a majority. Negotiations will likely begin on Thursday into the makeup of the next governing coalition.
Mainstream parties have ruled out working with Wilders, arguing that his decision to torpedo the outgoing four-party coalition earlier this year in a dispute over a crackdown on migration underscored that he is an untrustworthy coalition partner.
Rein in migration
Rob Jetten, leader of the center-left D66 party that has risen in polls as the campaign wore on, said in a final televised debate that his party wants to rein in migration but also accommodate asylum-seekers fleeing war and violence.
And he told Wilders that voters can “choose again tomorrow to listen to your grumpy hatred for another 20 years, or choose, with positive energy, to simply get to work and tackle this problem and solve it.”
Wilders era
Frans Timmermans, the former European Commission vice president who now leads the center-left bloc of the Labor Party and Green Left, also took aim at Wilders in the final debate, saying he is “looking forward to the day—and that day is tomorrow—that we can put an end to the Wilders era.”
Wilders rejects arguments that he had failed to deliver on his 2023 campaign pledges despite being the largest party in parliament, blaming other parties for stymying his plans.
“If I had been prime minister—which I earned as leader of the biggest party—then we would have rolled out that agenda,” he said.
