Geert Wilders gambles on election at the risk of losing political allies

Geert Wilders’s second taste of power lasted less than a year. Will Europe’s veteran populist ever get another?

The far-right firebrand brought down the Dutch government on Tuesday, 17 months after winning national elections for the first time and forming one of the most rightwing coalitions in history.

But his patience with the constraints of governing snapped as his partners refused to sign up to an immigration policy that they said was almost certainly illegal.

“I will continue and become the next prime minister of the Netherlands,” Wilders told the media as the incumbent, Dick Schoof, tendered his resignation to the king.

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For the anti-Islamic politician, the move was a trademark political gamble: create upheaval, stand out as the authentic voice of the far right, and rely on voters to make his Freedom Party impossible to ignore.

But in the notoriously fragmented arena of Dutch politics, where 15 parties claim seats in parliament, it is a gamble that still requires Wilders ultimately finding allies to share power – a task he is making ever more difficult.

“It’s unlikely anyone will govern with Wilders again,” said Sarah de Lange, professor of political pluralism at the University of Amsterdam.

Wilders’s three coalition partners had already scotched his dream to claim the premiership after he won the November 2023 election. They agreed to join a government but only if the volatile Wilders was not in charge.

The compromise saw the four party leaders remain in parliament, naming technocrats and other MPs to the cabinet.

Wilders picked Schoof, a former spy chief with no political experience. He had no party affiliation and struggled to control the unwieldy coalition. But his old knack for uncovering secrets would have often seemed essential: ministers gathered in party groups before cabinet meetings to agree positions, with Schoof largely kept out of the loop.

Even attempts to team build fell flat. One morale-boosting card game was reportedly interrupted when Pieter Omtzigt, the leader and founder of the centre-right New Social Contract, walked out over a budget disagreement. He has since quit politics, handing over to his deputy.

Wilders’s move to abandon the four-way coalition, where his Freedom party was the biggest group, was interpreted as an attempt to put migration at the heart of any new election campaign. But for his coalition partners and rivals, the abrupt move seemed to reinforce his role as the renegade of Dutch politics.

Even his closest government allies rounded on him, including the radical rightwing Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), which had backed his campaign to “put the Dutch first”.

“I think Geert Wilders is betraying the Netherlands,” said Mona Keijzer, the BBB housing minister, on her way into the cabinet meeting. “He ultimately put himself first, instead of the Netherlands.”

Sophie Hermans, of the conservative liberal VVD, said she was “angry, pissed off, disappointed”.

“How can you do this at such a moment, when you look at what is going on in the world and in our country?”

The veteran anti-Islam campaigner, who lives in a safe house because of death threats, had attacked the government repeatedly over asylum policy. “I signed up for the strictest asylum policy, not for the downfall of the Netherlands,” he said.

However, other party leaders said the asylum minister, Marjolein Faber of the Freedom Party, had declined to present proposals on how to cut numbers arriving.

“He’s blaming the others for the failure of his own minister,” said a senior member of one of the coalition parties.

Immigration policy has become the bane of several Dutch coalition governments. Mark Rutte, the long-time prime minister from the VVD, broke up his own coalition in 2023 for refusing to back tougher migration policies.

The Netherlands, one of the world’s most densely populated countries, has struggled to accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees in recent years. Reception centres overflowed and a housing shortage was exacerbated.

Wilders responded with a 10-point plan to cut migration and demanded the other coalition leaders signed. It included using the army to patrol the border, closing refugee accommodation centres and sending home all Syrian refugees because the country is now safe.

It would also ban family members from joining refugees who were already in the Netherlands.

But for all the friction over migration policy within the coalition, polls suggest the Netherlands could return to its more traditional centrist position.

The Dutch set the populist pace for the EU in 2022 when the BBB won regional elections and then again when Wilders topped the 2023 poll. But no party has suffered more in polls since the election than Wilders.

One person close to the VVD said the current leader, Dilan Yesilgoz, had erred in the last campaign by failing to rule out a deal with Wilders, which boosted his profile.

“Now he’s had a chance and blown it. He’s heading for opposition. The next election will be about security and defence.”

Dutch politics is so volatile that the NSC and BBB are likely to be almost wiped out at the election, expected in September

The VVD, which can govern with the centre left or centre right, is polling between 25-31 seats, about the same as the Freedom party.

The Labour/Green alliance led by former European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans is between 25 and 29. The resurgent Christian Democrats, who suffered heavily from defections to the NSC, set up by their former MP Omtzigt, are on 16-20.

Any government needs 76 of the 150 MPs in the lower house of parliament.

Deniz Horzum, a former Dutch official, said it would be a traditional battle between left and right. “Expect VVD and Labour/GreenLeft to turn this into a political duopoly: vote for me or you get the crazies on the other side.”

He said a coalition led by either would return one of the founder members of the European project to the centre of EU affairs.

“After years of punching above our weight in Brussels, we started shooting ourselves in the foot during this last period. A more traditional, stable and centrist coalition might help restore our position.”