Amsterdam [Netherlands], March 14 (ANI): Geert Wilders, the hard-right politician who won a surprising victory in the last Dutch elections, announced that he was willing to forgo becoming the prime minister of the Netherlands for now to increase chances of forming a ‘right-wing’ coalition, the New York Times reported.
He said that he will become the Premier only if all the coalition partners support it, which was not the case this time. He vowed that he would continue his efforts to lead the country with the support of even more Dutch people.
“I can only become prime minister if ALL parties in the coalition support it. That wasn’t the case,” he wrote on social media on Wednesday. Wilders added that he wanted a right-wing cabinet and less immigration.
“The love for my country and voter is big,” he wrote, “and more important than my own position.”
Wilders has been at the centre of coalition negotiations in the months since his decisive election victory in November last year. While it is highly unlikely now that he will be the next prime minister, other parties will have to find a way to govern with Wilders’s ‘Party for Freedom’ in some form.
Notably, the Netherlands is long regarded as one of Western Europe’s most liberal democracies and a right-wing coalition was long considered ‘unthinkable’ there, according to the New York Times.
Wilders has been negotiating for a way to form a government with the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, a center-right party that has governed for the past 13 years; the Farmer Citizen Movement, a populist pro-farmer party; and the New Social Contract, a new centrist party.
Together, these four parties have 88 seats in the House of Representatives, a comfortable majority, but the party leaders did not agree on a way to work together under Wilders’s leadership.
Although, it is too soon to know who will become the Netherlands’ new prime minister, an experienced former politician who could advance a right-wing agenda is expected to come at the helm of power, the New York Times reported.
Wilders registered a convincing win in the national elections in November. Nearly a quarter of Dutch voters chose his party, which took 37 of 150 seats in the House of Representatives, a big number by the standards of a Dutch party system that rests on consensus and coalition building.
Wilders, who founded his Party for Freedom in 2006, is one of the Netherlands’ best-known politicians and the longest-sitting member of the House of Representatives, where he has served since 1998.
Wilders has said he wants to end immigration from Muslim countries, tax head scarves and ban the Quran. He has even called Moroccan immigrants “scum.”
A few hours after announcing that he would step away from the chance of becoming prime minister for now, Wilders kept the hopes alive for any supporters who might have been disappointed with his announcement.
“And don’t forget: I will still become the prime minister of the Netherlands,” he wrote. “With the support of even more Dutch people. If not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow.” (ANI)
