Dutch Far-Right Party Wins Landslide Victory in Elections

On Friday, the Dutch Electoral Council announced that the Netherlands' far-right Freedom Party (PVV) won the parliamentary elections by a landslide.

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The PVV got 37 out of 150 seats in the House of Representatives, becoming the biggest party in the country for the first time in history. The elections were held on Nov. 22 with a 78 percent turnout.

The GreenLeft-Labor alliance, GroenLinks-PvdA, ranked second with 25 seats, while the rightist People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) took the third place with 24 seats and the new centrist party New Social Contract (NSC) fourth with 20 seats.

The Democrats 66 secured nine seats, the Farmer-Citizen Movement BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) seven seats, the Socialist Party (SP) and the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) each five seats, and the remaining seats were divided among seven smaller parties.

As the winner of the elections, the PVV is in a position to try to form a new majority coalition government. Former PvdA politician Ronald Plasterk took up the job of talking to the leaders of all parties.

PVV leader Geert Wilders already indicated he prefers a center-right coalition with the VVD, NSC and BBB, which has a large majority of 88 seats. However, Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius, successor of four-time Prime Minister Mark Rutte as VVD leader, said that her party would support a center-right government, but does not want to join it.

NSC leader Pieter Omtzigt explained that his party is not ready yet to negotiate on a possible government. Omtzigt has reservations about working with Wilders, who is known for his anti-Islam stance.

The formation of a new government could take some time. After the previous elections, it took a record of 271 days to create a new Dutch government.