Dutch voters hit polls as immigration fears propel far right towards power

As the Netherlands gears up for a drawback parliamentary predetermination connected October 29, little than halfway done parliament’s accustomed four-year word pursuing the illness of the ruling coalition, the likelihood of different triumph for the country’s far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) is mounting.

An outright triumph is adjacent to impossible. The Netherlands has ever had a conjugation authorities formed by a minimum of 2 parties owed to its proportional practice electoral system, nether which seats successful parliament are awarded to parties successful proportionality to the fig of votes they win.

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The PVV, headed by Geert Wilders, besides won the astir votes successful the past predetermination successful November 2023. It past partnered with 3 different far-right parties – the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), New Social Contract (NSC), and the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) – to signifier a conjugation government.

But successful June, PVV made a melodramatic exit from the coalition government implicit a disagreement connected migration policy. PVV had wanted to present a stricter asylum argumentation that included closing borders to caller asylum seekers and deporting dual nationals convicted of crimes, but the different parties demanded further discussions.

In a melodramatic move, Wilders took to X to denote that the nonaccomplishment by different parties to hold to PVV’s plans meant it would permission the coalition.

Coalition partners slammed this determination and accused Wilders of being driven by self-interest. VVD person Dilan Yesilgoz said astatine the clip that Wilders “chooses his ain ego and his ain interests. I americium astonished. He throws distant the accidental for a right-wing policy”.

Following the pull-out, Prime Minister Dick Schoof – an autarkic – announced that helium would resign and a drawback predetermination would beryllium held this month.

Then, successful August, the NSC’s Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp besides resigned aft helium failed to unafraid enactment for caller sanctions against Israel implicit its warfare successful Gaza and the humanitarian concern successful Gaza City. In solidarity with Veldkamp, different NSC enactment members near the coalition, leaving lone 2 parties remaining.

Now, with an predetermination imminent, sentiment polls suggest the PVV volition unafraid the astir seats successful the 150-seat parliament. While a victor needs 76 seats to signifier a government, nary azygous enactment ever makes it to that figure, which has led to a past of coalitions.

According to a canvass by the Dutch quality outlet, EenVandaag, connected October 14, the PVV is projected to unafraid 31 seats. The centre-left Green-Labour confederation (GroenLinks-PvdA) is polling astatine 25 seats, and the centre-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) is polling astatine 23.

PVV’s erstwhile conjugation partner, the centre-right VVD, could instrumentality 14 seats and the BBB, four. So far, the NSC is not projected to unafraid immoderate seats astatine all.

Frans Timmermans (left), person of the Green Left-Labour Party (PvdA), Henri Bontenbal (centre), person of the Christian Democratic Appeal Party (CDA), and Geert Wilders (right), person of the Party for Freedom (PVV), successful The Hague, the Netherlands, September 18, 2025 [Remko De Waal/EPA]

Immigration fears

At the extremity of September, EenVandaag polled 27,191 radical and recovered that the main sticking constituent betwixt voters – and, hence, betwixt the leaders, PVV and GroenLinks-PvdA – is immigration. Half of each voters said it was the cardinal contented connected which they would beryllium voting this year. Housing was the second-most important contented astatine 46 percent, and “Dutch identity” came 3rd astatine 37 percent.

While the PVV is firmly anti-immigration and wants to enforce a overmuch stricter borderline argumentation and asylum laws, GroenLinks-PvdA would similar to let a nett migration fig of 40,000 and 60,000 migrants per year.

Tempers are moving precocious implicit this issue. Last period astatine The Hague, a right-wing activistic known arsenic “Els Rechts” organised an anti-migration protest that attracted 1,500 attendees. According to reports, protesters threw stones and bottles astatine the police, acceptable a constabulary car alight and smashed windows of the left-wing Democrats 66 (D66) enactment offices.

While left-wingers reason that the migration contented has been wildly hyped up by the acold right, they are losing power of the narrative.

Esme Smithson Swain, a subordinate of MiGreat, a Dutch non-governmental run radical that calls for state of question and adjacent attraction for migrants successful the Netherlands, told Al Jazeera that the acold close successful the Netherlands and successful the United Kingdom, much widely, had “constructed a communicative that determination is simply a migration crisis”.

“They’ve managed to conception this thought of a crisis, and that distracts our attraction distant from populism, distant from arms trades, distant from societal services and the payment authorities being sold off.”

Whatever its merits, the right-wing connection that migration is astatine the basal of galore societal ills seems to beryllium taking hold. The far-left, pro-immigration BIJ1 party, which rejects this message, is not projected to triumph immoderate seats astatine each successful this election.

Immigration “is a cardinal word particularly for right-wing governmental parties to triumph the election”, Noura Oul Fakir, a campaigner for the BIJ1 party, told Al Jazeera. “We don’t absorption connected it due to the fact that we look astatine everything that’s been going connected from a systemic constituent of view, that each signifier of oppression is interlinked … This combat for equality and justice, it’s astir much than conscionable immigration, but it’s besides interlinked with different issues that we spot nowadays.”

A protester wearing a emblem arsenic a cape poses for a photograph successful beforehand of a banner bearing the colours of the Dutch emblem and speechmaking ‘send them home’ during an anti-immigration rally successful Amsterdam, the Netherlands, October 12 [Robin van Lonkhuijsen/EPA]

People ‘more emboldened to explicit racist views’

By January 1, 2024, the Netherlands was hosting 2.9 cardinal migrants (16.2 percent of the population), compared to the mean crossed European Union subordinate states of 9.9 percent (44.7 cardinal radical successful total).

Similarly, Germany hosts 16.9 cardinal migrants (20.2 percent of the population); France, 9.3 cardinal (13.6 percent of the population); Spain, 8.8 cardinal (18.2 percent of the population); and Italy, 6.7 cardinal (11.3 percent of the population), according to figures from the EU.

Mark van Ostaijen, an subordinate prof successful nationalist medication and sociology astatine Erasmus University Rotterdam, explained that migration has go a mainstream talking constituent successful “housing, care, acquisition and taste argumentation domains”.

For instance, the Netherlands is presently abbreviated of 434,000 homes, including for 353,000 asylum seekers and 81,000 Dutch first-time buyers, according to figures commissioned by the Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning (VRO).

Immigration has, therefore, been blamed for what is seen arsenic a lodging crisis.

According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), 316,000 migrants arrived successful the state successful 2024, 19,000 less than successful 2023. But CBS besides recovered that colonisation maturation is inactive chiefly down to nett migration, with the largest fig of migrants coming from Ukraine and Syria.

“I deliberation this is so thing that volition proceed the electoral legitimacy of far-right parties, oregon right-wing parties, adjacent more, fixed the information that the Netherlands was already rather leaning towards the blimpish angle,” van Ostaijen told Al Jazeera.

“This volition beryllium a taxable that volition haunt our authorities and our antiauthoritarian decision-making and sermon for rather a while,” helium said.

Anecdotal grounds bears this out. Fakir has noticed a alteration successful the experiences of migrant residents she and her colleagues person spoken to successful the state pursuing the maturation of the PVV.

“In their idiosyncratic beingness [they person seen] a noticeable displacement wherever radical consciousness much escaped oregon emboldened to explicit racist views, some online and successful existent life. Others are telling them those classical things of ‘go backmost to your ain country, oregon you’re not Dutch’,” she said.

For Nassreddin Taibi, a caller postgraduate who works arsenic a governmental expert and plans to ballot for GroenLinks-PvdA, the anti-immigration protests astatine the Hague “further cemented polarisation among Dutch voters” and person caused centrist parties to autumn into enactment with the right-wing narrative.

“These protests person influenced the sermon successful the consciousness that centrist parties present accidental that cutting migration is indispensable to triumph backmost spot of voters successful politics,” helium said.

Nearly fractional of voters inactive undecided

While the far-right PVV is projected to triumph the astir seats successful this election, it volition inactive look an uphill travel to signifier a government, arsenic different parties specified arsenic the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) person ruled retired joining a conjugation government.

Furthermore, the PVV’s leader, Wilders, has not escaped contention with his Islamophobic comments and anti-migration stance contempt the emergence successful anti-immigration sentiment crossed the state arsenic a whole.

Notable incidents implicit the years see Wilders’ likening of Islam to Nazism successful 2007 and his notation to the Muslim beatified book, the Quran, arsenic “fascist” successful a missive to a Dutch quality outlet. His missive and comments led to Wilders being prosecuted for inciting hatred and discrimination, which helium denied. In 2011, helium was acquitted by a justice who ruled that his comments had fallen wrong the scope of escaped speech.

More recently, successful August this year, Wilders posted an representation connected X that depicted a smiling, blonde and blue-eyed woman, representing the PVV; and a wrinkled, angry-looking aged pistillate wearing a headscarf, representing the PvdA. It was accompanied by the words: “The prime is yours connected 29/10.”

Aan U de keuze op 29/10 pic.twitter.com/royhcInDlm

— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) August 4, 2025

Fake quality and misinformation person besides driven the emergence successful far-right narratives, analysts say.

The Facebook leafage ‘Wij doen GEEN aangifte tegen Geert Wilders’ (We are NOT filing charges against Geert Wilders), which claims to beryllium a PVV supporters’ leafage boasting 129,000 followers, said it does not mean to beryllium “discriminatory, hateful, oregon incite violence”, but has nevertheless posted AI-generated images of this nature.

In 1 specified image, which received 1,700 likes, a achromatic household is seemingly being harassed by men of colour.

In another, a achromatic pistillate is seen successful a supermarket paying for groceries portion surrounded by Muslim women wearing hijabs and niqabs, with the caption: “No wide immigration, nary Islamisation, nary backwardness of the Dutch.” The station received 885 likes.

While the outgoing location affairs minister, Judith Uitermark, has said the authorities is examining caller ways to combat fake news, she added that the Netherlands is somewhat protected from the emergence of extremism by its proportional practice system, nether which nary 1 enactment ever wins a majority.

Still, the Dutch Data Protection Authority has warned voters not to usage AI chatbots to assistance them determine who to ballot for.

And a ample fig are inactive deciding. EenVandaag recovered that immoderate 48 percent of voters are inactive undecided astir which campaigner they volition choose. If the GroenLinks-PvdA tin disengage from right-wing talking points and, instead, absorption connected its ain policies more, it whitethorn execute amended than expected, analysts say.

This volition beryllium nary casual task, however.

“We find ourselves doing this besides arsenic a civilian nine organisation, arsenic campaigners, trying to combat disconnected the communicative and combat disconnected the benignant of populist ideals of the acold close faster than we tin propulsion for our ain docket arsenic well. And I deliberation a batch of the clip that leaves left-wing parties successful the Netherlands seeming a spot hollow,” Swain said.

Still, she says that she is holding retired anticipation for this election, contempt what feels similar a “vast and increasing far-right bulk of the population”.

“I deliberation it’s precise casual to benignant of consciousness that part betwixt ‘us and them’. Us campaigning connected the near and this increasing wide of the acold right,” Swain said.

“We request to tackle warring the power of lobbying and of fake quality successful our governmental structures. And I deliberation that becoming much agreed arsenic a colonisation would people autumn from that.”