European elections: Far-right populists flop in the Netherlands as centre-left makes surprise gains
The populist wave supposedly sweeping Europe has failed to materialise in the Netherlands after far-right parties flopped in the first results to come in from the continent.
Though final official results are not in until Sunday, exit polls and preliminary results show that Dutch voters handed a surprise victory to country’s Labour Party (PvdA) after a surge in turnout.
The anti-Islam Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) appears to have lost all four of the seats it won in 2014, while another new far-right party, Forum for Democracy (FvD), failed to meet high expectations and seems to have only managed fourth place.
Voter turnout was significantly up on the previous elections, projected to hit over 40 per cent of the electorate for the first time since 1989. As in the UK, very few voters have turned out for EU elections in the Netherlands in recent decades.
The fact that Frans Timmermans, the EU socialist group’s candidate for Commission president, is Dutch and a member of the country’s Labour party appears to have driven support for the group.
Dutch Labour has otherwise had a torrid few years and been eclipsed by other parties on the left in the Netherlands’ highly fragmented political system.
The Netherlands was was the only country other than the UK to vote on Thursday, with voters in the other members states going to the polls at various times between now and Sunday. Official results cannot be announced in any country until polls have closed on Sunday evening, and there is no UK exit poll – so the first taste of British results will be after 10pm on Sunday.
Pollster GeenPeil, which used an army of of volunteers to collate hundreds of local results which must be released early under Dutch election laws, found that Labour would win six seats, with prime minister Mark Rutte’s centre-right liberal VVD coming in second with four seats. The moderate Christian Democrats also appear to be heading to win four seats.
The far-right FvD looks set to win a disappointed three seats, despite polls suggesting they had surged. They are tied with the GreenLeft party, also set to win three seats.
The animal rights party Party for the Animals and the pensioners’ interest party 50+ are expected to win a seat each, while social liberal D66 and a right-wing evangelical Christian party are on course to pick up two each.
The PVV, which is left by Geert Wilders, is expected to lose all its seats, as is the left-wing Socialist Party – which has done better than the Labour Party in national elections in recent years.
The surprise good result for Dutch Labour – and thus extra seats for the European Parliament’s socialist group – is a boon to Mr Timmermans’ hopes of becoming European Commission president. He however faces competition from centre-right EPP candidate Manfred Weber, and other contenders backed by member states such as Danish liberal Margrethe Vestager and even EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier.
