Dutch election: anti-Islam, far-right Geert Wilders set for big win

Is there a country in the EU where the far right isn't on the rise? I need a Backup plan in case the nazis are voted in Germany again

Denmark. You may not like how Frederiksen did it - she essentially opted for politics that are as anti-immigrant as legally possible - but she also obliterated the far right there. The two far-right parties in Folketing now total 10 of 179 seats..
And the difference between Frederiksen's social democrats and the actual far right is huge. No climate change denying, no cozying up to Russia, no anti-lgbtq nonsense, no anti-EU propaganda and so on.
- Yeah we have tax rebates for the rich, defunding of education, some laughably passive bordering nonexistent policies to protect local environment and combat climate change (heavily lobbied for by the agricultural lobby)....shit is going just A-OK here 👌
- "Anti-immigrant" but welcoming people from select countries. Reminds me of how a Swedish person told me he thought there were too many immigrants but that I, a Canadian, would be perfectly welcome to go there.
  Apparently some people are considered immigrants and that's bad, while others are just expats looking for a new home.
Ireland?
- Oof, later in the day from when you commented that, there was a far right riot 😬
- Well that aged poorly exceptionally quickly 😂
Portugal? IIRC they’ve been quite resistant to right-wing populism.
- Portugal's Chega party increased to 7,2 % in 2022. That's lower than in the rest of the EU, but still an increase by eleven seats.
Switzerland is a well tested option
- SVP currently holds 25% of the seats in the federal council of Switzerland. Not exactly what I'd call Nazi-free.
- The last time the Nazis were in power in Germany, Switzerland closed its borders to most people trying to flee, so maybe a well tested, but still not so good option...
spain's fsr right wing party went down from 15% to 12% in the last elections.

This one hurt. The fight for the EU, the climate, diversity and the democracy just became harder.

Well, that's not set in stone yet. If he doesn't manage to form a coalition (and it's very much in the realm of possibilities that he won't be able to), the GreenLeft-Labour Party is next in line. In which case a GL-PvdA/VVD/NSC/D66 coalition (parties #2-#5) is not unlikely. Which I'm guessing would have to make some concessions when it comes to migration, but would probably be OK-ish news for the EU, the climate, and democracy and rule of law.
- Sure, but it's the amount of support he got that scares me. There's a lot of support for the right wing in the Netherlands. That means that either a lot of people support those views or are willing to put up with these xenophobic zealots just to make a statement.
Well apparently people don't want the kind of diversity they got...
- I can’t change the way I look and I only got one passport, so tough luck.

Calm down. While he got the biggest share, it is "just" 35 seats in a 150 seats parliament. He would need another 41 seats in coalition to get anywhere, which means (as his share is the largest) he would not only need one, but at least two partners willing to form a coalition with and a government under him.

While those 35 seats are still 35 seats too many, I doubt he will run the country.

I really, really hate this kind of thinking.
Election in 2008: "Calm down, the far right only got 3%" Election in 2012: "Calm down, the far right only got 7%" Election in 2016: "Calm down, the far right only got 13%" Election in 2020: "Calm down, the far right only got 18%" And so on...
Can you people really not see a problem with this?
- It's the intolerance paradox in full view. Wilders should have been convicted and jailed years ago. A tolerant society must be fiercly intolerant towards intolerance.
- At the same time, people are bound to compare it to e.g. Trump, who actually got a majority. It's good to know that our electoral system works differently, if you're unfamiliar with it.
- It really depends on your take home message.
  If it’s “shit is dire, but it could be worse and we still have a chance to fight back”, it’s one thing.
  If it’s “everything is under control go back to sleep”, it’s quite another.
  To be fair, the vibe I got from GP was more towards the latter though.
- I see the problem with it, but it also means they have not won (yet), and you can work towards the next election to fix it.
- The far right got plenty more votes in those elections, just for other parties. I think in total this election the far right received something like 3 more votes than last time? The difference is that it's now mostly concentrated in a single party.
Right now people are theorizing 2 possible coalitions, the first one is PVV - NSC - VVD and the other one is GLPVDA - NSC - VVD - D66. This means we're either getting a far-right populist as the prime minister or we are getting a coalition that will get us absolutely nowhere and will change nothing from the status quo, while also likely destroying leftist support even more because of how little to coalition will be capable of vs. what the leftist party (GLPVDA) promised
We're not doing okay
- Then again the first option is rather likely to implode in record time. Meaning we'll have to have elections again.
  Or at least I hope so.
it is “just” 35 seats
The article says that the projection has now risen to 37.

As a Dutchman, I'm kind of shocked. The battle seemed to be between the previous largest party VVD, the new NSC party and the labour/greens fusion. Then the PVV suddenly surged. Apparently a lot of people who weren't sure yet ended up going with the PVV. Out of the 4 largest parties we have 3 that are right-wing and/or conservative. The PVV is far-right (though hard to place), the VVD is a neoliberal party, and the NSC is closer to the centre but also quite conservative. We're entering dark days...

The leader of the labour/green did a very bad campaign. I voted for him out of conviction, but I can totally see undecided voters not being convinced by his campaign. The loss of the VVD can be explained partly by the punishment that ruling parties get in elections in these times. I'm just hoping the leader of the NSC doesn't agree to be in a coalition with PVV. Best thing we can hope for now is a center-right coalition with the Labour/Greens, the VVD (neo-liberals) and NSC (center-right) :(
- What shocks me is that unconvinced voters thought his idiotic anti-Islam position wasn’t a reason not to vote for him.
  They’ve know that’s what he stands for the past 17 years. Sure, he said it’s ’negotiable’ if it helps him get into government sometime during the campaign but now that he’s the biggest he’s gonna make a stand on that once more.
- To be fair, his concession speech was stellar. Talk about peaking too late.
- And D66, otherwise they won't have a majority. Though the Senate (Eerste Kamer) I think will still be a challenge.
What would you say the chances are of Wilders being able to form a coalition?
- Before the election I would have said unlikely, because both NSC and VVD ruled out a coalition with PVV. Afterwards the NSC already caved to "respect the choice of the voters" and the VVD also did not make a clear statement.
Perhaps it's like the Trump win. People declared they'd never vote for him publicly, but secretly did
May I ask if there are any kind of statistic significance in terms of age or city/suburbs/land PVV voters are stronger than voting for any other parties?

I can't do this anymore, fuck.

Anyone who thinks this shocking needs to leave their social bubble.

The European liberal left is in losing battle for their voters and their solution is pretending that nothing’s happening.

I don't think that they're pretending that. However, the issue is that right-wing and right-of-center parties carelessly throw around lies and half-truths that match the way people tend to be thinking anyway.
It also doesn't matter to them that they create rather than solve issues, as long as their narrative is stable. A very recent example: Conservatives normally claim that they are in favor of having a strong and growing economy. However, German conservatives just deliberately worsened the economic outlook of the entire country by suing against the 2021 state budget. To do so, they weaponized an overly aggressive debt ceiling they themselves[1] put into place in 2009 and which they themselves ignored for most of the years between 2009-2021.
[1] Along with the Social Democrats who unfortunately have been moving further to the right for at least the last 20 years. Since Conservatives, Free Liberals and Social Democrats all voted for this debt ceiling rule at the time, it's now part of the constitution. Abolishing that rule is now an impossibility, as the coalition would need support from a large number of Conservatives to do so.

I think I heard that whoever made the current Russian flag design explicitly copied the Dutch flag design to make Russia look more European or something.
If I'm wrong, the downvote button is right there.
- Close, but not quite. This flag was used on the first Russian ships in 17th century. At that time Russia didn't have it's own fleet, so they just used the flag of the most powerful fleet at the time, that just happened to be Dutch. But it was not considered as the national flag. Later, after the February revolution, the flag of the Russian Empire was considered a "symbol of tsarism" at could no longer be used, so the provisional government just decided to use this flag as a placeholder, before the new one could be created. And after the fall of USSR Russian Federation just returned everything to how it was between February an October revolutions.
- Give it time enough and the Russian flag wíll be an European flag :/

Welp, there goes my willingness to move to the Netherlands.

Not sure where you'd be moving from, but as an American... Even their craziest far-right dude is basically just a racist socialist. He's got some bad ideas, for sure, but half of them are racism and the other half are "so some of the shit that hasn't worked for America."
I'm not saying that makes it okay. I'm surprised and disappointed in the Netherlands. But compared to most of America's politicians, he seems downright reasonable.
- The main anti-islam laws aren't gonna fly anytime soon. They require a change in the foundational law (art. 1), which takes a 75% majority of the parliament elected by the next election. Not something easily achieved.
  The more worrying parts are the hype to incarceration, having a zero-policy system that badly punishes without any merit but to lock people up, further stressing the already trembling mental health system.
  And there are plenty of election promises that only get carried by this party. Abandoning the EU, for example, will be something the part wouldn't get any support in from other mayor parties and is likely to be culled.
  But it's all just hypothetical, not sure what'll happen next, it won't be quick that's for sure.
  Ninja edit: proofread and minor phrasing
Oh you still can. Nothing will really change. Still has to make coalitions, compromisses blablabla if thats possible and if not well maybe new elections. Is he extreme? Yes allthi he seems to have lighten up a bit who knows. But its not like other countries. A Prime Minister is not a total ruler only a sort of spokes person. All the parties have to agree on things to make shit happen, and is why everything goes so slow here. Its not the best explanation but its the gist of it. Its still shit he MAY represent every dutch person but its not done yet. It way better then thierry beaudet (cunt). There a lot of assdicks in our parties.

Seems like Europe is turning against the Muslim community.

As a Canadian I'm curious why this is happening and what people think could be done to make for a more welcoming transition. We also accepted quite a few middle eastern refugees over the past few years and I'm wondering if there are lessons to be learned.

General problems being projected on foreigners, turning into racism.
- General problems are parents integrate well, children clamp on their parents identity and prefer that over the identity of their place of residence. And if you look at the statistics it's not projected, it's true (math doesn't lie)
- These don't seem like general problems but I can see the racism bubbling up.
Canada is extremely picky when it comes to refugees. And it has the choice to be picky, because crossing the sea from the Mid-East/North Africa to Canada is hard. Even refugees from South America need to travel through the US first. So in the end, Canada gets people who are relatively well-off and well-educated and who pose fewer problems integrating.
Europe on the other hand is the natural route for Mid-East/North African refugees which due to the geographical closeness is available to a lot more people, including some from social segments below the middle class of their original country. And since the people coming to the EU tend to integrate worse, need more education and social services, there's a tremendous opening for right-wing parties to swoop in and make claims. The EU also really needs to work on integration of new arrivals, even a country that pretends to be fairly open like Germany is partly really steeped in outmoded, hostile, demotivating processes and a mentality of not seeing refugees as people but as a burden to society.
- I would disagree that Germany has not been welcoming.
  The public opinion has just shifted after numerous incidents including rape, murder, terrorism in addition to the bad integration and clashing cultures.
  It is also obvious at this point that it's not refuge but immigration we are looking at, which changes the entire deal a bit and makes the aforementioned problems look worse.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Now Geert Wilders has likely won a massive election victory in the Netherlands and is in pole position to form the next ruling coalition and possibly become the country's next prime minister.

In his first reaction, posted in a video on X, formerly Twitter, he spread his arms wide, put his face in his hands and said simply “35!” - the number of seats the poll then forecasted his party had won.

In 2009, the British government refused to let him visit the country, saying he posed a threat to “community harmony and therefore public security.” Wilders had been invited to Britain by a member of Parliament’s upper house, the House of Lords, to show his 15-minute film “Fitna,” which criticizes the Quran as a “fascist book.” The film sparked violent protests around the Muslim world in 2008 for linking Quranic verses with footage of terrorist attacks.

To court mainstream voters this time around, Wilders toned down the anti-Islam rhetoric and sought to focus less on what he calls the “de-Islamization” of the Netherlands and more on tackling hot-button issues such as housing shortages, a cost-of-living crisis and access to good health care.

His campaign platform nonetheless calls for a referendum on the Netherlands leaving the European Union, an “asylum stop” and “no Islamic schools, Qurans and mosques,” although he pledged Wednesday night not to breach Dutch laws or the country's constitution that enshrines freedom of religion and expression.

He also is a staunch supporter of Israel and advocates shifting the Embassy of the Netherlands there to Jerusalem and closing the Dutch diplomatic post in Ramallah, home of the Palestinian Authority.

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