The Netherlands woke up Thursday to an unexpected victory for Dutch anti-EU far-right populist Geert Wilders and his\u00a0Freedom Party (PVV) \u2013 a forecast win that has triggered shockwaves in the Netherlands and could have reverberations across Europe and beyond. <\/p>\n
The provisional outcome based on 98% of the votes counted showed the PVV had won 37 seats and will be the\u00a0largest party in the House of Representatives, according to public broadcaster NOS. <\/p>\n
In second place is the\u00a0joint Labour\/Green ticket with\u00a025 seats, followed by the\u00a0conservative People\u2019s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and the\u00a0Dutch\u00a0center-right\u00a0NSC party\u00a0with 20 seats, according to\u00a0NOS. <\/p>\n
Wilders and his supporters applauded the results in a video he posted on social media Wednesday night. <\/p>\n
He is now\u00a0poised to start working on forming a coalition but the process could be challenging and\u00a0take months. <\/p>\n
Voter research showed that migration and asylum were important issues for voters and Wilders\u2019 party has largely benefited from that, according to NOS. <\/p>\n
Wilders\u00a0has vowed that the Netherlands \u201cwill be returned to the\u00a0Dutch\u201d and \u201cthe asylum tsunami and migration will be curbed.\u201d <\/p>\n
He also maintains\u00a0the Netherlands should stop providing arms to Ukraine, because it needs them to protect itself. <\/p>\n
After the exit poll results Wednesday night, Wilders said he would not push for anti-Islam measures, such as a Quran ban or the closure of Islamic schools, according to NOS. <\/p>\n
He said he wanted to adhere to the constitution and is already working towards forming a coalition, according to NOS. <\/p>\n
According to Wilders, parties must now \u201cjump over their own shadows\u201d and try to find common ground, according to NOS.\u00a0\u201cIt cannot be the case that Frans Timmermans will take charge due to a failed formation, that should not happen,\u201d he said referring to the\u00a0Labour\/Green\u00a0party leader. <\/p>\n
Key French politicians expressed their views on the results. \u201cThis is the consequence of all the worries and fears that have been surfacing in Europe since the last several years,\u201d French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told French TV Franceinfo Thursday. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe fear over the war in Ukraine, the fear over the economic fall of Europe compared to China and the US and fear over the influx of migrants,\u201d Le Maire added. <\/p>\n
The Dutch party that is most aligned with French President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s Renaissance party is D66, which saw its seat counts collapse on Wednesday from 24 to only nine, based on the latest numbers, according to NOS. <\/p>\n
Renaissance and D66 belong to the same political group in the European Parliament. <\/p>\n
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen expressed her joy at the results Wednesday night, in a post on social media. Her party is an ally of PVV and Wilders. <\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations to Geert Wilders and the PVV for their spectacular performance in the parliamentary elections, which confirms the growing attachment to the defense of national identities,\u201d Le Pen said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is because there are people who refuse to see the national torch extinguished, that hope for change remains strong in Europe,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
Le Maire was quick to stress that the Netherlands is not the same as France, in his interview with Franceinfo. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe only lesson [for us] is that we need to continue to get results for the French people,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Rosanne Roobeck contributed to this report.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n The Netherlands woke up Thursday to an unexpected victory for Dutch anti-EU far-right populist Geert Wilders and his\u00a0Freedom Party (PVV) \u2013 a forecast win that has triggered shockwaves in the Netherlands and could have reverberations across Europe and beyond. The provisional outcome based on 98% of the votes counted showed the PVV had won 37 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12002,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}