A setback for Dutch election winner Geert Wilders

The former ruling VVD party said immediately after the November 22 election that government cooperation with Wilder’s Freedom Party was out of the question.

One reason is that the VVD had a disastrous election with a new party leader. The party’s number of seats decreased from 34 to 24 seats in the 150-seat parliament.

The latest setback for Wilders came when the newly formed conservative National Security Council party on Wednesday closed the door to cooperation.

“In general, the National Security Council sees no basis for starting talks with the Freedom Party on forming a majority or minority government,” party leader Peter Omtsigt wrote in explanation of the decision.

The National Security Council won 20 seats in Parliament.

He explained that the Freedom Party’s election manifesto “contains opinions that contradict, in our opinion, our constitution, and we draw a clear line there.”

The only hope is to form a coalition

The far-right leader and Felder’s xenophobic party need 76 seats out of 150 in parliament to form a government. Although his number of seats in parliament more than doubled, his only hope was to form a coalition.

Among others, the rural populist BBB party remained, which gained seven seats in parliament. It is possible that additional far-right parties will obtain nine more seats, which is not enough to obtain a majority.

The alliance between the Social Democratic Party PVDA and the environmental party GL rejects any contact with Wilders.