No one seems to be able to make sense of the political earthquake unleashed on the Hague by the populist firebrand Geert Wilders on Tuesday, June 3rd, by having his Freedom Party (PVV/PfE) quit the fragile right-wing coalition. Wilders cited as the reason his coalition partners’ unwillingness to tighten asylum rules—a key campaign promise that gave him a landslide victory back in 2023.
While some commentators are warning that an inevitable snap election would give the leftist opposition a chance at governance, Wilders remains unfazed by the pessimistic voices. In fact, he has already set course for the ultimate prize: becoming the prime minister who would actually deliver.
“I am going to become prime minister of the Netherlands next time,” the PVV leader said at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon. “I don’t think about quitting. The Netherlands deserves a government that puts its own citizens first.”
In late 2023, Wilders’ PVV won the general election with 24% of the votes, far above the two large establishment parties that barely reached the 15% mark.
However, as his prospective partners on the Right refused to grant him the premiership that usually goes to the leader of the winning party, it took 223 days to hammer out a coalition deal with the center-right VVD and NSC, and the farmers’ party BBB, and form a government led by the technocrat PM Dick Schoof.
Wilders could have lived with being sidelined personally, but not without the radical migration reforms for which he was given an unprecedented mandate two years ago.
His ten-point plan—which includes suspending asylum procedures for the time; deporting Syrians now that the Assad-regime has fallen; scrapping family reunification; and using the military to secure the borders—has been rejected time and time again by his supposedly right-wing coalition partners, leaving the Dutch who voted for a change in the dirt.
Now that the government has collapsed and the remaining ministers will have to take on a caretaker role for months, PVV’s coalition partners are furious at Wilders for forcing another risky election on them. While VVD is up in the polls somewhat to 18%, the NSC and BBB have plummeted to 1%, which means they will almost certainly drop out of the parliament.
Wilders, whose PVV has gone down to 20% but is still the most popular party in the Netherlands, says he understands their frustration, but putting his voters first is non-negotiable after a year’s worth of struggle to get his asylum reforms passed.
In fact, the plan is broadly popular among voters of all government parties, and recent polling data indicated that three-quarters of PVV voters wanted the party to leave the government if it’s not adopted. Therefore, letting the citizens decide the fate of the asylum reforms, one way or another, is the only democratic solution out of the deadlock.
The big question is whether Wilders’ wager will pay off. The former EU climate czar, Frans Timmermans-led Labor-Green alliance is polling in second place right now with 19%, just one point below the PVV. If things go wrong and Timmermans becomes the prime minister of a leftist coalition, the Netherlands can wave goodbye to any chance of a sensible migration reform.
But then again, the current coalition was no help either, so there weren’t many options to go about this. Wilders and the PVV know that they must seize power once more with a coalition that’s willing to act, and not only talk, as a right-wing government in order to deliver to the people. Analysts say that with a focused campaign and high enough turnout, another surprise landslide victory is possible.
Whether that’s enough to make Wilders the prime minister remains to be seen, but the next few months will certainly be intense.
