Far-right leader Geert Wilders wins Dutch election: Exit poll
politico.eu
politico.eu
But yes it's terrible news. And it will divide the country. I will never respect a PVV supporter. This is not the path forward.
> Only 23% voted for him.
That's 23% of votes cast. Strictly speaking, considering the 78% turnout, isn't it the case that only 18% of eligible voters voted for PVV? (And even whether those are votes for Wilders himself might be arguable.)
On a scale of 1 to 10? Belgium.
The problem isn't that he has only a ~quarter of the seats (last time a party had a similar lead was in 2012), it's that the results are too scattered. There are no realistic combinations.
PVV + VVD + NSC is the only possible combination with PVV, and I'm not seeing NSC go for that (for a number of reasons: ideological differences with PVV, history with VVD, probably not a good idea to participate in a coalition as a brand new party).
The other alternative is Labour/green + VVD + NSC + D66. It's similar to the purple coalitions of then 90s, but things changed quite a bit since then so I'm not sure how realistic that is, and it's probably going to end up disastrous for Labour (and D66) to be in a cabinet with a right-wing and centre-right party (as it has been in the past).
The other alternative seems palatable for all participants, and when it's the only remaining option, suddenly a lot is possible - especially for the parties who've already dropped out of a previous negotiation. But yes, Labour/Green/D66 will be suffering afterwards.
On immigration VVD is closer to the PVV that they'd like to admit, but PVV is also pretty left-wing on a lot of other issues – that's probably going to be a harder problem. The reason Rutte 1 failed was the budget, not immigration.
Yes, that's why I mentioned they will probably enter into talks - but it's not unimaginable that those will fail.