Geert Wilders’ task to become Prime Minister after the resounding victory of his PVV in the Dutch House of Representatives became a little more difficult yesterday when he heard that the VDD, currently in power, refuses to be part of a coalition with the radical right party with the aim of forming a government.
To achieve his goal, Wilders needs the support of 76 of the 150 members of the House of Representatives. In addition to the 37 won by the PVV, you can now virtually count on the four seats won by the other two radical right parties – FvD and JA21 – as well as the seven elected by the BBB, the farmers’ party.
Now that the second most voted force has taken the Labour/Green coalition (25 elected) out of the game – as leader Frans Timmermans has already assumed he will be in the opposition – it remains up to Wilders to try to win Pieter’s support to get. The newly established NSC van Omtzigt and its twenty deputies. But even if he receives this support, the leader of the radical right still needs the VDD to gain a majority. And yesterday you already received your answer.
“The big winners are the PVV and the NSC. After thirteen years, we have a different role,” Dilan Yesilgöz, leader of the VDD and still Minister of Justice, said yesterday. “But we will make a center-right cabinet possible. We will support constructive proposals, so it is a form of tolerance,” he added.
Geert Wilders said he was disappointed with this decision. “This doesn’t make things any easier. It could take months to form a government now,” he said. “I hope they change their minds, because governing is better than tolerating.”
Pieter Omtzigt also commented on this decision, describing it as a “strange measure” as this week’s first parliamentary term took place after the fall of the VVD government over immigration. “Now she has the chance to talk to Wilders about it and then she says: ‘Actually, we are not going to do that.'”
Yesilgöz’s statement was made before the first official negotiations on forming a coalition, which could last months. Party leaders called PVV senator Gom van Strien an ‘exploiter’ of this process. It is part of their role to talk to the different parties, find out who is willing to work with whom and analyze the figures of the complex Dutch electoral mathematics. As the party with the most votes, the PVV gets the first chance to try to form a government.
Opposition to the possibility of a government led by Geert Wilders also reached the streets. Protest demonstrations took place in cities such as Amsterdam and Utrecht on Thursday. Leaders of the Dutch Muslim community have also expressed fear and anxiety at the thought of Wilders as prime minister, but some Muslims appear willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
In its election manifesto, the PVV defends the ban on mosques and the Koran, and Wilders has already said he is willing to give in to some of his most controversial ideas. “A prime minister has a different role than the leader of the opposition,” he said.
with agencies
Source: DN
