The Dutch parliamentary elections: major changes or not?
After the Dutch parliamentary elections of October 29th, the political situation has changed dramatically, or not? In the press and the political arena, we hear enthusiastic voices about the new political situation, but there are also voices arguing that the election results won’t significantly alter the political balance of power.
The result of the national elections
What’s the situation? In the November 2023 parliamentary elections, the one-man party, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV), won 37 of the 150 seats in the Dutch parliament. Following that victory, Mr. Wilders’ party joined forces with the liberal party, the VVD, the farmers’ party, BBB, and the new party NSC (New Social Contract) to form a new government. That coalition didn’t last the prescribed four years because Mr. Wilders terminated the partnership. In June of this year (2025), he demanded that the cabinet implement his so-called 10-point plan, which amounted to a total freeze on asylum seekers: no asylum seekers would be allowed into the country. The other coalition parties, particularly the NSC, refused to implement the 10-point plan, and the cabinet fell, resulting in early elections held on October 29th 2025.
Mr. Rob Jetten, leader of Democrats ’66, winner of the elections
The democrats, the winners
The winner of those last elections was the left-liberal party D66, led by Mr. Rob Jetten, but the gains were not substantial. The party won only 26 seats in parliament. All other parties were the same size, like the PVV, or were smaller than D66. This makes D66 the “smallest ever largest” party in parliament. The PVV also won 26 seats, but in terms of voters, the latter received fewer votes, relegating the PVV to second place, though still larger than all other parties.
Extreme right, a shift with a gain
The 11 seats the PVV lost did not go to left-wing or centrist parties, but mainly to other right-wing populist parties like JA21, which went from 1 to 9 seats, and Forum for Democracy, which gained four to seven. On balance, the (extreme) right-wing bloc actually gained one seat more than in the previous parliament.
A new government
D66, the winner of these elections, takes the initiative to form a new government but faces the liberal VVD party as an obstacle. VVD party leader Dilan Yesilgöz refuses to form a coalition with the left-wing Green-Left Labour Party (GL-PvdA), which, incidentally, lost five seats, from 25 to 20. She opts for a coalition consisting of D66, the aforementioned JA21, and the Christian Democratic Party CDA, led by party leader Henri Bontenbal. Together, they would have 75 seats, just short of a majority, but not a minority either. D66 leader Rob Jetten, the intended prime minister and, uniquely in Dutch history, openly gay, opts for a broad coalition of his own party, together with the liberals of Ms. Yesilgöz, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), and the GreenLeft Labour Party (Groen-Links). This coalition would then have a substantial majority of 86 seats in parliament.
But Ms. Yesilgöz of the VVD refuses to join a cabinet with the socialists of the GL-PvdA. She is forcing D66 to form a center-right cabinet, but D66 has little interest in that. The differences between this party and that of JA21 are enormous, politically speaking.
Where is Mr. Wilders?
But, the reader may wonder, where does Mr. Wilders’ party stand in this game? Well, after Mr. Wilders brought down the previous cabinet and, in the past, caused another cabinet to stumble, all parties now refuse to cooperate with him. He stands isolated on the sidelines, watching the spectacle unfold.
The challenges of the new prime minister Jetten
D66 leader Jetten faces a difficult formation process. Municipal elections will be held in March 2026, and it’s certainly not out of the question that a new cabinet will still not be formed by then. Analysts predict that if Ms. Yesilgöz’s VVD party were to change its mind and form a center-left cabinet with the GL-PvdA, they would postpone it until after the municipal elections. If they gave in to D66’s demands earlier, they would suffer a major electoral loss from voters who, after all, had been promised during the election campaign that the liberals would never join forces with the left-wing GL-PvdA.
Thus, the election victory of the left-liberals of D66 could potentially turn from a blessing into a curse.
Possible comeback of Mr. Wilders?
Mr. Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom
Analysts argue furthermore hat even if D66 manages to form a cabinet of any political color, it could easily be short-lived. In new parliamentary elections, Geert Wilders’s PVV, who declared in the last election that he would “continue in politics until he’s eighty,” might achieve a major victory, potentially leading to the premiership for the bleached-blonde PVV leader. Comparisons are being drawn with US President Trump, who made a glorious comeback after Mr. Biden’s presidency.
While the political landscape in the Netherlands may have shifted since the last parliamentary elections, the changes are not significant: the Netherlands remains a country with a substantial center-right or far-right electorate that is currently biding its time and waiting for the next round of elections to possibly overwhelmingly return to the center of power. While the tide of populism may be ebbing in the Low Countries, the high tide is certainly not long in coming.
This post was also published in Chinese on the website of the Beijing Club for International Dialogue
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Read as well my latest publication on the Ideology of the Dutch Party for Freedom on this link (book to be downloaded freely).