Dutch prime minister claims victory over anti-Islam candidate

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The Dutch political establishment appeared Wednesday to fend off a challenge from anti-Muslim firebrand Geert Wilders in a national election, according to exit polls, a victory that heartened centrist leaders across Europe who are fearful of populist upsets in their own nations.

The result confirmed Wilders as a powerful voice on immigration in the Netherlands. But it would leave in place Prime Minister Mark Rutte and do little to alter the fundamental dynamic in a country unhappy with the status quo but deeply divided among many political parties.

The Dutch vote was seen as a bellwether for France and Germany, which head to the polls in the coming months and have also been shaken by fierce anti-immigrant sentiment. The British vote to exit the European Union and the election of Donald Trump, a skeptic about NATO and European integration, have cracked the door to a fundamental reordering of the post-World War II Western order.

But Wilders nose-dived in recent weeks after topping opinion polls for most of the past 18 months, as Dutch voters appeared to turn away from an election message that described some Moroccans as “scum” and called for banning the Quran and shuttering mosques.

Wednesday is “an evening where the Netherlands, after Brexit, after the American elections, said no to the wrong kind of populism,” Rutte told a cheering crowd in The Hague. He said he had already spoken to other European leaders to accept their congratulations.

But Wilders vowed to continue his fight.

“Rutte is far away from rid of me!!” Wilders wrote on Twitter shortly after the initial exit polls were released, embracing his role as more of a pest than a governing leader. Despite the disappointing result, he still gained seats, reconfirming his role as a thorn in the side of the nation’s mainstream leaders.

Outside Dutch borders, many leaders offered sighs of relief.

“Netherlands, oh Netherlands, you are the champions,” Peter Altmaier, the chief of staff to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, wrote on Twitter, echoing a Dutch soccer chant.

Taken together, the initial results appeared to show a nation that agreed that it disliked the current political situation – but had immense internal divisions about an alternative direction. With about a third of the vote counted early Thursday, the results were holding roughly steady.

Rutte’s center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy remained the largest party according to the exit poll, but it was on track to lose nearly a quarter of its seats in parliament, forcing the prime minister to form a new, broader coalition across the political spectrum. His coalition partner, the center-left Labor Party, was wiped out as a political force, a punishing blow in response to cooperation with a longtime rival that had a sharply different approach to the core issues of working citizens.

Even as Wilders confronted limits to his ballot-box appeal, his agenda-setting power remained evident after many mainstream politicians tacked rightward during the campaign to advocate for stricter limits on immigrants.

“All the politicians of the main parties have been debating his issues, more than they’ve been debating other issues such as climate change,” said Sarah de Lange, a professor of political science at the University of Amsterdam.

Wilders’ Party for Freedom was forecast to build slightly on its current 15 seats in the lower house of parliament, tying it with the centrist Democrats 66 party and the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal. The center-left Green-Left party, led by Jesse Klaver, a 30-year-old upstart who embraced Barack Obama-style campaign tactics, also appeared to do well, potentially quadrupling its seats.

“With Brexit and Trump and with the elections in France and Germany on their way, all those journalists we’ve spoken with in the last weeks wanted to know: Will populism break through in the Netherlands?” Klaver said at a jubilant evening rally. “This is the answer we have for Europe. Populism didn’t break through.”

Still, the likely formation of a broad, weak coalition across the political spectrum could give extra ammunition to Wilders even though he will be barred from power. Rutte has repeatedly said he would not work with the peroxide-haired firebrand.

Rutte also significantly toughened his stance on immigrants during the campaign in a bid to capture Wilders’ supporters, telling immigrants in January to “act normal or go away.”

But Wilders’s showing will probably slow the momentum of French anti-immigrant leader Marine Le Pen, who, if she captures her nation’s presidency in May, would try to lead France out of the EU, shattering the bloc in the process. German leaders also face a challenge as the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party stands to capture seats in Parliament.

“The key effect of it is international,” Cas Mudde, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia who focuses on political extremism in Europe. “It determines what issues we talk about and how we talk about them.” He said that mainstream Dutch political leaders would probably feel less pressure to take a hard line against immigration and may actually become significantly more moderate depending on the outcome of coalition negotiations.

The tone of the Dutch campaign dispirited some citizens who want a welcoming attitude toward refugees and immigrants.

“They’re not making the point what they want to do. They’re just saying what they’re against,” said Arieke Maljaars, 32, a teacher at an elementary school in the heavily immigrant Schilderswijk area of The Hague, where Turkish kebab stands are close to Surinamese grocery stores. She said she planned to vote for the small, centrist Christian Union party. She said some of her 8- and 9-year-old students, most of whom are immigrants or the children of immigrants, “were really scared.”

“One of them said, ‘Maybe I’ll have to go to Turkey, and I really don’t want to go there.’ For children in the neighborhood, it can feel frightening,” Maljaars said.

The campaign upended old notions about Dutch tolerance and inclusiveness, and the influx of immigrants starting in 2015 has created the perception of new strains on society. There was a net increase of 56,000 people in 2015, and 88,000 in 2016, many of them Syrian, according to the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics. About 10 percent of the Netherlands’ 17 million people are non-Western immigrants or their children.

The refugee crisis has helped fuel the Dutch debate. The push-and-pull comes at the same time as Trump’s triumph in the United States, the British rejection of immigrants after the decision to leave the EU and the fiery immigration-focused election campaigns in France and Germany.

Many Wilders supporters said Wednesday that they resented that refugees who came to their country were provided housing and health care even as Dutch people struggled to make ends meet.

“I understand they don’t have anything, but I have to pay for all that,” said Bep van Beele, 66, who lives in the working-class Duindorp area of The Hague, a bastion of Wilders’s support. “It creates jealousy. There’s not much left for the Dutchman.”