Dutch vote in knife-edge snap elections seen as litmus test for far right

Polls suggest anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party connected people to triumph largest fig of seats.

People successful the Netherlands are voting successful a high-stakes drawback predetermination dominated by migration and lodging issues that volition trial the spot of the far right, which is connected the emergence crossed Europe.

Voting began astatine 7:30am (06:30 GMT) connected Wednesday, and polls suggested anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders and his far-right Freedom Party (PVV) are connected people to triumph the largest fig of seats successful the 150-member House of Representatives. However, 3 much mean parties are closing the gap, and fractional the electorate is undecided.

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After the results are known, parties person to negociate the constitution of the adjacent conjugation authorities successful a strategy of proportional practice that means nary enactment tin scope the 76 seats needed to govern alone.

The cardinal question is whether different parties volition enactment with Wilders – known arsenic the “Dutch Trump”, a notation to the United States president – who sparked the elections by pulling the PVV retired of a fractious four-way conjugation and collapsing the erstwhile authorities successful a enactment implicit immigration.

All mainstream parties person ruled retired a concern with him again, uncovering his views excessively unpalatable and viewing him arsenic an untrustworthy conjugation partner. It seems apt that the person of the enactment that polls 2nd volition astir apt go premier minister.

Reporting from The Hague, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said the predetermination run had been “dominated by calls to bounds immigration” with “some convulsive protests against exile centres”.

In a pre-election interrogation with the quality bureau AFP, Wilders said radical were “fed up with wide migration and the alteration of civilization and the influx of radical who truly bash not culturally beryllium here”.

“The aboriginal of our federation is astatine stake,” helium said.

Rob Jetten – person of the centre-left D66 party, which wants to rein successful migration but besides accommodate asylum seekers – told Wilders that voters tin “choose again time to perceive to your grumpy hatred for different 20 years oregon take with affirmative vigor to simply get to enactment and tackle this occupation and lick it”.

Frans Timmermans, a erstwhile European Commission vice president who present leads the centre-left bloc of the Labour Party and Green Left, said successful the last statement earlier the elections that helium was “looking guardant to the time – and that time is time – that we tin enactment an extremity to the Wilders era”.

Beyond immigration, the lodging situation that particularly affects young radical successful the densely populated state has been a cardinal run issue.

The electoral committee has registered 27 parties and 1,166 candidates moving for the House of Representatives.

That means a large ballot insubstantial due to the fact that it bears the names of each the parties and the candidates connected each party’s list.

Polls adjacent astatine 9pm (20:00 GMT).