- https://twitter.com/geertwilderspvv/status/842255891210608640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Posted on 03/16/2017 5:46:10 AM PDT by pgkdan
Pro-EU forces across the continent were celebrating the victory of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte's Liberal Party over upstart populist Geert Wilders Freedom Party. The Liberals have picked up at least 30 seats in the 150 member Dutch Parliament with the Freedom Party gaining 20 seats. But the Dutch voters scattered their support among 5 parties, making Rutte's job of forming a coalition government extremely difficult.
The outcome was worse than opinion polls had suggested for Wilders, representing a rejection of his platform of pulling the Netherlands out of the European Union, abandoning the euro, closing Dutch borders and stopping all immigration by Muslims. It suggests that the nationalist sentiment that prompted the U.K.’s Brexit vote and won Donald Trump the White House will struggle to secure as big a foothold in Europe’s core.
***SNIP***
Despiite the nearly universal narrative being pushed by media here and abroad that Wilders' defeat was a "blow to populism," a closer look at the results tells a different story. Wilders' party gained 5 seats compared to the 2012 election, while Rutte's Liberals lost 9 seats. The Labor party was decimated, losing 29 seats while the socialists and the Greens each made modest gains.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Here's a chart (the only decent one I could find was from the FAZ
I read that a coalition of parties needs 76 seats for a majority in the 150 seat parliament.
Coalition talks will take at least two months, but yes, Wilders greatly under-performed expectations, and Rutte greatly exceeded his.
The fact that PvdA, the labor party, went from 24 to 5 is really newsworthy in some way.
He’s not forming a government and will not be part of the coalition. That’s not winning.
I agree. He didn't lose, he just failed to win. Rutte's response to Turkey's Erdogan really helped at the last minute.
Wilders gave the Dutch the perfect opportunity to say STOP! We've come this far but NO MORE! And they failed. I deplore the timidity that Europeans are showing all over the western half of the continent. What's it going to take to wake these people up? At this point I don't think anything will make them shake off their stupor.
Wilder’s PVV gained five seats and Rutte’s VVD party lost eight.
The junior party in his coalition, the Labor Party, was cut 29 seats down to just nine,
Rutte will have to form a coalition with several parties in order to get 76 votes, a majority.
Neither of those outcomes was ever in the cards.
Reading some of the pundits yesterday it seemed to be.
Lucky for us in America the winning party becomes the majority ruling party. Imagine if we had a parliamentary system like Holland. The parties would have vowed (like in Holland) to shut Trump out.
Ah thanks...
He never had a shot at a clear majority, which is what it would take for his party to form a government since every other party publicly pledged that they will never be part of a coalition with Wilders party.
If they were conquered by Napoleon and Hitler shouldn’t they fear Moozlems?
He had a shot at becoming head of the party with the most seats. As such he would have been asked to form a government. That would have been a win. As it is now people are saying he really won because his party picked up seats. Well the Democrats picked up seats last November. That didn't make them winners.
Situations like Holland force the parties to work together in a bipartisan manner. Given the political divide we have now I don't think that would be possible here. We'd have a situation like Belgium where they have gone a year or more without a functioning government on more than one occasion.
Oh, my. What a tangle you write. They are closer to England, from a historical standpoint, because of Christianity and Calvin. Linguistically, it’s pretty Germanic. As for the rest, what DIRTYSECRET said.
He would not have formed a government. Every single party has announced that they would not participate with him in forming a coalition government. His win would have been significant as a demonstration that the Dutch people have had enough and demand change, and that might have had an impact on whatever government eventually was formed but he wouldn't have formed a government. The other parties hate him at least as much as the democrats hate Trump.
Geert Wilder’s life now won’t be worth a plugged euro as Muslims continue to flood in.
He should be invited to America & to earn U.S. citizenship.
The same offer should be extended to Afrikaners in SA and for the same reason: the barbarians are taking over.
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