The Netherlands confirms the rise of Wilders’ far-right in the European Championships and the left remains

Geert Wilders’ radical right has swept Dutch voters and would suddenly achieve 7 of the 31 seats that belong to Netherlands in the European Parliament, according to the exit polls from the elections held this Thursday, which maintain 8 seats to the left-wing bloc of the Greens and Social DemocratsGL-PvdA.

Wilders, who also won the legislative elections in the Netherlands in November with his Freedom Party (PVV), initially celebrated this victory. “I’m very happy. We have never had seven seats. We are by far the biggest winner. I hope that on Sunday we will become the biggest game (for the Netherlands), ”he noted. The results will not be known until Sunday, when all member countries vote.

Wilders, who has devastated with promises of “a much stricter and tougher asylum policy”, maintains his hope that the PVV will be able to snatch some additional seats from the left in the official count and be the big winner of the elections, which is why he cautiously congratulated Frans Timmermans, former vice president of the European Commission and leader of GL-PvdA.

The joint leftist list obtains the highest number of seats, 8, in the polls, which is one less than in 2019. “With this we can now get to work,” said Timmermans, promising a “solidarity” and “safer” Europe.

These data come from exit polls carried out this Thursday by the Ipsos research institute, which asked voters at several polling stations about their vote, which offers a good picture of voter behavior, but has a margin of error one seat per party.

The People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), to which the liberal belongs Mark Ruttewould stay with four seats; followed by the Christian Democrats of CDA and the left-liberals D66, with three seats each.

He BBB Farmer-Citizen Movement -critical of European regulations for farmers- would enter the European Parliament for the first time with two seats, while four other parties would be left with one seat each: the pro-European Volt, the Christian Democrat NSC, the Calvinist SGP and the Animal Party PvdD.

“I’m super happy. Maybe we’ll get one more seat, we’ll see. The voter has spoken. And I also want to represent the voters of other parties in Brussels, give them a voice and work with them,” he said. Sander Smith, leader of the BBB list, after knowing these data.

As Wilders’ radical right advances, the extreme right Forum for Democracy (FvD), by Thierry Baudet, has been the big loser of these elections. He would lose his four seats and be left without European representation, after years of criticism over his leader’s conspiracy theories.

In the Netherlands, voter turnout in European elections is traditionally lower than in national elections, but almost a 47% of the electorate, six points more than in 2019 and the highest figure since 1989.

Election day has passed without incident on the ground, although several parties, including CDA, PVV, FvD and SGP, have reported that their official websites have been inaccessible this Thursday after being subject to DDos cyber attacks, which saturates the servers, limiting access to online information about the candidates and their proposals.

immigration

A study carried out this week by Ipsos I&O showed that 62% of Dutch people will be guided entirely or largely by national politics, given the media attention on the efforts of three right-wing parties, led by Wilders, to form a government.

This means that immigration weighed on many voters, as Wilders indicated. “In the Netherlands, the number one issue now, and it was also in November, is how we can get a stricter asylum and immigration policy. And my message is: we can do a lot on our own, but we will also have to take back some power from the EU. And that is why this vote is so important,” he said, after voting this morning.

Furthermore, he warned that a Timmermans victory will bring “more European rules, less national sovereignty, more asylum and immigration and less possibilities of doing anything about it”, while, if the family of the radical right represented before the European Parliament grows, “There is a greater probability that that can be changed.”

The Netherlands and Estonia began the European elections this Thursday, which will continue in the other countries for the next three days, although The official results cannot be published until Sunday after 11:00 p.m. Dutch (21.00 GMT), when the last electoral college closes in Italy.