Dutch govt collapses as major political party exits coalition

The Dutch government has collapsed after the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) withdrew from the ruling coalition. 

The party leader Geert Wilders made the announcement Tuesday, citing disagreements over asylum policy.

“I signed up for the strictest asylum policy, not for the downfall of the Netherlands. And our responsibility for this cabinet therefore ends here,” Wilders told reporters in The Hague.

The move dismantles what had been the most right-leaning government in Dutch history and throws the country’s politics into turmoil. 

Prime Minister Dick Schoof’s administration now holds just 51 of the 150 seats in parliament.

Opposition leaders are already calling for immediate elections. Schoof, who has previously clashed with Wilders on policy matters, has not yet commented.

Polls suggest that if elections were held today, the PVV would lose seats but remain the largest party—just ahead of the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy.

Still, that may not be enough to form a new government. Dutch politics is famously fragmented, with no single party ever having won a parliamentary majority. Current polling indicates that both center-right and center-left parties could gain from a new vote.

Wilders’ PVV had emerged as the clear winner in the November 2023 election. However, after months of coalition negotiations, an agreement was reached that kept Wilders out of the cabinet and confined to a role in parliament.

Wilders has long been known for his anti-Islam and anti-immigrant rhetoric. In 2014, he was convicted of discrimination after making inflammatory remarks about Moroccan immigrants at a campaign rally. His party’s platform calls for “no Islamic schools, Qurans, and mosques.”

Last week, Wilders held a rare press conference to issue an ultimatum over asylum policy—despite the fact that the minister for asylum and migration is a member of his own party.

“The PVV promised voters the strictest asylum policy ever, aiming to make it the strictest in all of Europe.

“We proposed a plan to close the borders to asylum seekers, to stop them, to send them away. To stop building asylum-seeker centers, to close them,” Wilders said.

According to Wilders, those proposals were rejected by the coalition.

“I could do nothing other than say that we are now withdrawing our support for this cabinet,” he said.

(CNN)

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