Dutch snap election set for Oct. 29

The Netherlands faces a snap election on Oct. 29 after far-right chief Geert Wilders pulled his party out of the government earlier this week and toppled the coalition.

Dutch Interior Minister Judith Uitermark confirmed the date in a post on X on Friday.

Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), and the Labour-Green-Left alliance (PvdA-GL) are tightly bunched in the no-longer-hypothetical election race, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls.

The far right stormed to a shock victory in the last Dutch election, in November 2023, ushering in a right-wing government headed by Prime Minister Dick Schoof.

But Wilders — one of Europe’s most hardline anti-migration politicians — brought down the coalition on Tuesday after a dispute about the government’s position on asylum. He withdrew his party after demanding PVV’s coalition partners commit to a 10-point plan on migration — a move now-caretaker PM Schoof called “unnecessary and irresponsible.”

The now-cemented election date gives parties almost five months to campaign — and, in some cases, to turn the tide.

The centrist New Social Contract (NSC) and populist Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), both fairly new parties, entered the government after scoring clear wins in the November 2023 election. But recent polls projected they could now win as few as one or two seats. 

The NSC faces a major challenge to match its previous election result — this time without its founder, the popular Pieter Omtzigt, who left politics in April.

Support for Wilders’ Party for Freedom has declined since the election. It’s now polling neck-and-neck with its former coalition partner VVD and the country’s largest opposition party, the Labor-Green-Left alliance led by former European Commissioner Frans Timmermans.

That means the next election could bring about a new “seismic shift” in the Netherlands’ political landscape, Rachid Azrout, assistant professor of political communication at the University of Amsterdam, said. 

Those who favor strict migration policies and cast their vote for the PVV in the previous election may be disillusioned with how the government played out, Azrout said, adding they are likely to sit out the next election.

Starting gun fired

Politicians have already shifted into campaign mode.

Wilders blamed the government’s inaction on migration on his coalition partners — not least the NSC — and said he wants to make his party “larger than ever” in the next election and aims to become PM himself.

In a post on X on Friday, he asked to make “the PVV so large that we finally can put a stop to asylum, close asylum seeker centers and start deporting criminal foreigners from the country,” he wrote.

“Wilders isn’t stupid,” Azrout said. “He knows exactly how political games work. So the fact that he came up with a 10-point plan on migration, only to say: Sign on the dotted line — he knows the corner he’s put himself in. And the consequences that entails.”

Other politicians have rejected Wilders’ ultimatum as political show, and experts called the plans are unlawful, according to an NRC report.

VVD President Dilan Yeşilgöz said Wilders’ decision to leave the government “wasn’t about migration.”

“We were already going to do everything that’s possible [on migration]. Everything we had agreed, was delayed by PVV bumbling,” she said.

Opposition leader Frans Timmermans, meanwhile, said the government had failed to find solutions for the Netherlands’ housing, nitrogen pollution and security problems, taking aim at both the Freedom Party and the VVD for leaving a “mess.”

In a fiery exchange Wednesday, he asked Yeşilgöz to promise to “never, never again” collaborate with Wilders. Yeşilgöz refused, accusing Timmermans of being “elitist.”

Ahead of November’s election, Yeşilgöz didn’t rule out a coalition with Wilders — a move that’s been blamed for adding to the PVV’s success at the ballot box.

Her predecessor at the helm of VVD, former Dutch Prime Minister and current NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, had vetoed further collaboration with Wilders after his government fell when the far-right leader withdrew support.

If Yeşilgöz decides to reject further collaborations with the Freedom Party, the party will have to find a way to do so in a credible manner, Azrout said, explaining they’d have to find a way to say “‘it was only an experiment, we didn’t like it, we’ll never do it again,’ and shut them out again that way.”

Still, other parties’ willingness or refusal to collaborate with Wilders’ party will inevitably enter campaigns and debates in the coming months.

NSC President Nicolien van Vroonhoven has already said that her party “won’t do business with that guy anymore.”