01 December 2023

LSE:The Dutch general election featured unprecedented levels of electoral volatility

Geert Wilders’ surprise victory in the 2023 Dutch general election has rightly grabbed headlines, write Martin and Krouwel. But the election was remarkable for several other reasons, not least the realignment of the party system brought about by unprecedented levels of electoral volatility.

At every Dutch election since 2003, voters have expressed their discontent with mainstream parties by turning to radical actors. In 2006 it was the radical left Socialist Party (SP) with 16.6% of the vote that was the electoral vehicle of discontent, and between 2010 and 2021 the mantle of discontent fell to Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV).

But never until this year’s election had a party from the radical fringe topped the vote or obtained more than 20% support. When the 23.7% achieved by the PVV is added to the vote for the centrist anti-establishment and new entrant New Social Contract (NSC) and the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB), a striking 42.3% of Dutch voters lent their support to parties explicitly critical of the country’s political establishment.

This watershed moment in Dutch politics has rightly grabbed international headlines and caused a wave of shock and anxiety among western Europe’s political establishment. But the 2023 Dutch general election was also remarkable for three other reasons.

The implosion of the governing coalition

First, there was the strategic miscalculations and electoral implosion of the centrist and right-wing parties that made up the country’s outgoing coalition. The four-party governing coalition fell apart in July this year over the plans of Prime Minister Mark Rutte to reduce migration levels by establishing stricter rules on family reunification for asylum seekers.

Having fallen out over migration, the parties of the outgoing coalition made the mistake of fighting the election on the issue and the ground most favourable to Wilders and the PVV. To compound this error, the new leader of the prime ministerial party, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), indicated that the party would be open to forming a coalition with Wilders in it. This removed one of the principal factors constraining voters sympathetic to Wilders from voting for his populist party. Support for the outgoing collation duly melted away, falling from 49.2% in 2021 to just 27.9% this year.

Failure for the left

Second, there was the failure of the electoral alliance of two mainstream left parties to mobilise progressive opposition to the radical right. In July this year, the members of the Netherlands’ two mainstream parties of the left, the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) and the Green-Left (Groen Links), voted overwhelmingly to run on a joint programme and with a joint candidate list at the election. Choosing the veteran social democrat and European Commissioner Frans Timmermans as its leader, the alliance hoped to rally the Dutch left around a vision of a “social and green” Netherlands.

While the alliance did gain eight seats and recovered partially from the two parties’ worst ever combined vote in 2021, drawing a lot of support in particular from the liberal D66, the alliance must be considered a failure. It failed to achieve the highest single list vote share at the election and failed to mobilise the left overall to form a strong bloc in parliament. Overall, the Dutch left fell to its worst electoral result in more than 40 years, with the parties of the left winning the support of barely 26% of Dutch voters...

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