Dutch election: progressive party surges as PM begins coalition talks

The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, will begin talks on forming a new coalition government after shrugging off setbacks to gain a comfortable win in a national election marked by a surge in support for progressive and pro-European forces.

With 80% of votes counted, Rutte’s liberal-conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) was on course for 35 seats in the 150-seat Dutch parliament, two more than in the previous 2017 poll, securing him a fourth successive term.

Rutte survived a mediocre record on the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 16,000 people in the Netherlands, three nights of anti-curfew rioting and a child benefit scandal that forced his cabinet to resign in January.

The popular prime minister benefited from a rally-round-the-flag boost at the start of the pandemic last year and, despite a recent dip in the polls, retained the confidence of many voters who plainly preferred stability in a time of crisis.

“Voters have given my party an overwhelming vote of confidence,” Rutte said after the early results came through. “I think everyone wants a new cabinet as quickly as possible. We’re in the middle of a very serious crisis and we’ll do our best.”

The big winner, however, was D66, a progressive, socially liberal and pro-European party named after the year it was founded and headed by a former UN diplomat, Sigrid Kaag.

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D66 won a record 24 seats, five more than last time, to finish second. It overtook both Rutte’s other main coalition partner, the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), which shed four seats to 15, and the far-right, anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders, whose Freedom party (PVV) lost three MPs and was on course for 17.

It should also change the coalition dynamic and may even make the hardline Netherlands – one of the “frugal” group of four fiscally conservative EU member states opposed to a common European budget and collective debt – a little more conciliatory in Europe.

Kaag, whose campaign stressed her gender and cosmopolitan background (married to a Palestinian, she has spoken strongly against racism in the Netherlands) tweeted a picture of herself dancing on a table in celebration.

She described the result as “a great responsibility” but added that she expected government policy to be notably “more progressive, fairer and greener” than in the past four years.

“The real question is now: what can D66 get out of the new coalition?” said Cas Mudde, a political scientist at the University of Georgia. “It no longer has an excuse to sell out its leftwing sociocultural agenda to satisfy its rightwing socioeconomic agenda and coalition partners.”

Pro-Europeans were also heartened by the performance of Volt, a pan-European party launched in 2017, which won four seats. The big losers, though, were the left-leaning parties, which analysts now expect to be forced into major changes.

The Dutch Labour party (PvdA), which lost three-quarters of its seats in a catastrophic showing in 2017, failed to regain any, remaining on nine, while GreenLeft, one of the big winners in 2017, lost half its MPs to finish with seven and the Socialist party shed five, holding on to nine.

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On the far right, while Wilders’ PVVdid worse than in 2017, the Forum for Democracy (FvD) of Thierry Baudet gained six seats to finish on eight after fighting a populist campaign promising to abolish Covid lockdown measures.

A new far-right party, JA21, founded by two breakaway members of the FvD, was on course to take four seats, meaning the combined far-right parties in the Netherlands will now have more MPs in parliament than the combined leftwing parties.

With a near-record 37 parties running in the election and 17 looking likely to make it into parliament, the shape of any future government is still up in the air. Coalitions can take months, with negotiations in 2017 lasting a record 208 days.

Rutte has ruled out a coalition with both Wilders and Baudet, but has said he would “obviously” seek to work again with D66 and that the CDA of finance minister Wopke Hoekstra would also be a “natural partner”. Those three parties, however, look as if they may fall just short of a 76-seat majority, meaning the coalition will be likely to need a fourth member.