The European elections in the Netherlands, so far, have only one certain winner: abstention. According to official data, in fact, less than half of Dutch voters went to the polls which were open from 7.30am to 9pm on Thursday: 46.8%, an increase compared to the elections five years ago when participation stood at 5 points in less.
According to the exit polls, published at the close of the polls awaiting the first official results which will be released on Sunday evening, coinciding with the end of the voting procedures also in the remaining European countries, to win the majority of the 31 seats assigned to the countries Low in the European Parliament was the red-green ticket PvdA-Groenlinks: the alliance between the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party may have obtained a total of 8 seats, one less than those won five years ago and one more than its rival, the sovereignist PVV which seems to have reached 7 seats.
HIS LEADER Islamophobic Geert Wilders therefore does not seem to have been affected by the long negotiations for the new government after his success in the elections of 22 November, when he won the relative majority of seats in the Tweede Kamer, obtaining 37 of the 150 seats available. The exit polls seem to confirm the positive moment for the sovereignist right, which stopped five years ago at zero MEPs and has now jumped to seven.
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The comments of the two leaders also arrived to confirm the good result for both political forces. “The pro-European parties achieved an excellent result in these elections, sending a clear signal to the rest of Europe that there is no need to work with this extreme right,” Frans Timmermans, former vice-president of the European Commission and social democratic leader, told Euronews, adding that “the idea that the far right would wipe out everyone did not materialize.” Even Geert Wilders, boosted by the growth predicted by the exit polls, expressed satisfaction: “The West is awakening, and you can see parties like mine growing in consensus throughout the European Union.”
Regardless of what Sunday evening’s results will confirm in these exit polls, it is certain that an important part of the Dutch electorate deserted the polls during the European elections, favoring the forces with a more pro-European profile who were able to mobilize their supporters for this electoral deadline. “A large part of the people who voted for the current majority in last year’s elections did not participate in these elections,” writes Nos, the Dutch news agency based on data collected by Ipsos I&O.
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THE COALITION government, made up of the liberal VVD, the centrist NSC, the ruralist BBB and the sovereignist PVV, in fact, also by virtue of a general sympathy for Eurosceptic positions, seems to have managed to win less than half of the votes expressed with a clear decline, above all, of Nsc and Bbb.
The two parties, intending to join the European People’s Party, seem destined to bring only a small patrol to Brussels: two parliamentarians for BBB and one for NSC. Four, however, one less than those had in the last legislature, are those that would belong to the liberal Vvd (in the European Renew group), which, after the long leadership of former prime minister Mark Rutte, has lost both the position of first party of Netherlands that its role as the main opponent of the red-green ticket PvdA-GroenLinks, in favor of Wilders’ sovereignist ally Pvv.
TO THE LEFTthe exit polls, in addition to predicting the good result of the red-green PvdA-Groenlinks ticket, seem to assign a seat in the European Parliament for the first time to the pro-European Volt, who referred to the Greens/Efa group, and to confirm one to the animal rights activist PvdD, which already in the last legislature had an MEP from the ranks of the European Left.
