As Elections Near, the Dutch Are Still Seeking a Political Savior

Yahoo News ^ | 8/7/2025 | Frida Ghitis

[Redmen4ever]

...with the elections less than 90 days away, a surprising development has emerged in the opinion surveys: Suddenly, the small center-right Christian Democratic Appeal, or CDA, is surging,...

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TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: geertwilders; henribontenbal; netherlands

[Redmen4ever]

Yes, Geert Wilder's Party of Freedom has shrunk since last year's election; and, yes, the Christian Democrats have grown; but, mostly these are changes WITHIN the right of center. The right of center parties continue to fetch 60 percent or more in the polls.

As discussed in the article, the situation is volatile. At this time, roughly speaking, Geert Wilder's populist-right Party of Freedom is at about 19% in the polls, as is the merged center-left Labor-Green Party. The center-right Christian Democrats, with 16% are third, and the center-right People Party is fourth with 11%.

Because of the volatility, there's no use to speculating about possible coalitions except to say the only one that makes sense is Wilders + the two main center-right parties + one or more smaller populist right and center-right parties.

We're just going to have to wait to see (A) how the election turns out and (B) what kind of post-election bargaining there will be among the parties.

[dangus]

The Party of Freedom went from 50% to under 30%. That’s bad. I wouldn’t call shifting from the Party of Freedom to the Christian Democrats a movement “within the center-right”; I’d say it’s like moving from Donald Trump to Mary Cheney or Arlen Specter. The CDA have done absolutely nothing to pull back the extremist legislation passed by recent labor-socialist governments. They seem 100% on board with abortion on demand, euthenasia, legal pot, just happy that someone ELSE did it.

[Redmen4ever]

What is your source for the Party of Freedom going from 50 to 30 percent?

According to wikipedia, the Party of Freedom received 23 percent of the vote in November 2023 (first place, with 37 out of 150 seats).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Dutch_general_election

[Hyman Roth]

Netherlands Holland but who are the Dutch?

[dangus]

I’m referring to polling. Shortly after the election, their polling soared.

[Redmen4ever]

You’re referring to seats, not percent of the vote. Following the election, Geert Wilder’s Party of Freedom (PVV) surged to about 50 seats, or about 30 percent of the vote.

Most of PVV’s post-election surge came at the expense of the two largest center-right parties in that election (the Peoples Party and the New Social Contract Party); and, might be interpreted to mean that many people wanted these three parties to work out their differences and form a coalition government.

To tie some loose ends together, it appears that the New Social Contract will be a one trick pony. It surged from out of nowhere in the last election and has now returned to its place of origin. The Christian Democrats have now been restored to one of the two largest center-right parties.