Just as a heads-up for American readers:
That doesn’t mean the far-right party lost. They don’t go home with nothing. They go to the European Parliament with 7 seats, the fact that the Labour-Green alliance has 1 more doesn’t change anything.Good info! But the take away is also that it wasn’t a landslide victory for the far-right, which a lot of people thought it might be.
Polls predicted both to be at around 8 seats. Exit polls have PVV at 7, Labour-Greens at 8, with a margin of error of 1. So pretty much what was expected.
Whether one or the other is larger is mostly irrelevant, as that only pertains to the Dutch share of seats in the European Parliament - there are way more seats to be assigned, and there will not be an absolute majority for anyone anyway.
It’s still pretty scary though. The far right wasn’t usually this close to the top. It’s like whole political center has been obliterated. Which, to be fair, is something they kinda caused themselves. People have lost trust in the government and are more and more just putting their faith in populists. I’m happy we’re at least somewhat matching that with a progressive/left/green vote, but still, scary times.
That’s a relief! Hopefully the far-right wave has bottomed out by the next election.
The problem is that the populist, nationalist right tends to be good in opposition, because they can shout simplistic slogans and don’t have to actually deliver anything.
How is that a relief? They still gained 7 seats.
Well, it could have been worse (and in the general election just a few months back it actually was a lot worse, so there’s that). On top of that, The Putin-loving white supremacist party of Thierry Baudet lost all their 4 seats.
So yeah, I’m not dancing on the table with this result, but am kinda relieved
Well, it is better than a majority. Still disheartening.
According to national polls, the PVV would have now ca. 48 out a total of 150 seats in the Dutch House of Representatives; so a 32%.
In this exit poll, PVV won 7 out of a total of 31 European Parliament seats, or 22,5%.
On the other hand PVV went from 1 to 7 seats in the EP. A huge far-right surge was/ is expected for the EP election. But in the Netherlands, it didn’t turn out as high as was predicted.
I suspect that the people who vote nationalistic populists into power are less interested in European elections.
And possibly these voters also dislike the amount of water the PVV has already had to add to their wine to get a coalition going on national level. Water such as guarantees that the constitution is not blatently broken.
Don’t hope, vote. Even though polls show something different.