Name: Netherlands election: Votes still being counted in tight race
Uploaded: 2025-10-31T02:26:37.270Z
Duration: 1 min 53 s
Description: Tight race in the Netherlands—centrist D66 gains ground while the far-right Freedom Party faces setbacks.

Tight race in the Netherlands—centrist D66 gains ground while the far-right Freedom Party faces setbacks.

The Hague

The Netherlands is witnessing a tightly contested election, with votes still being counted and no clear winner yet. Rob Jetten of the D66 party and Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right Freedom Party, are in a close race, making the formation of a governing coalition uncertain.

While Wilders' party has lost some support, the far-right bloc remains significant, holding nearly a third of parliamentary seats. The political landscape has become more fragmented, raising concerns about the stability and longevity of any future government.

Netherlands election: Votes still being counted in tight race

After celebrating a historic result for his D66 party, 38-year-old Rob Jetten is in a nerve-wracking neck-and-neck race with Geert Wilders, a man he fiercely campaigned against and who stepped out of the government last June. We've seen two years of negativism and a Dutch government that was not cooperating that much in Europe as we've seen before. And this brings the Netherlands back in the heart of Europe and I'm very proud of that. While Wilders seemed to accept his party's losses on election night, his tone changed when results showed it could still emerge with most votes. The largest party traditionally takes the lead in forming a governing coalition, with its leader likely to become the next prime minister. The most important thing now is that everyone wants to get started quickly. I agree we shouldn't wait too long with that, but you also have to respect the rules and that is that the largest party initiates it. We've never had a situation in the Netherlands where it's so close. Wilders' chances of building a coalition are low, since most mainstream parties are reluctant to join hands with him. But the far-right is far from defeated. The far-right seems to be holding on to their base, so that's a very important lesson from this election. I mean, the Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, has definitely lost quite a fair amount of his following. But that following didn't disappear or went into thin air on the contrary. They went to other far-right parties. So the whole bloc, which is almost one-third of the whole parliament, is still in the hands of the far-right. And these people are not going anywhere. This election has shown that the political landscape in the Netherlands has become even more fragmented, and any hope for more stability and a government that would be able to complete its term may even have become smaller. Stap van Som, Al Jazeera, in The Hague.

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