Geert Wilders poised to become next Dutch PM

The Dutch held parliamentary elections Tuesday, as required after its coalition government fell last July. And Geert Wilders, head of the Freedom Party (PVV), now will hold 37 seats in the 150-member House of Representatives. This puts Wilder, who once considered himself relegated to permanent opposition and has been moving from safe house to safe house for nearly twenty years, in good position to become the next Prime Minister of The Netherlands.

Geert Wilders wins stunning victory

Richard Abelson of The Gateway Pundit broke the news yesterday, largely on reporting by De Telegraaf and Fox News. This morning Abelson reported more extensively on the victory speech Geert Wilders made as more results came in.

The initial results surprised even Wilders himself. When he knew he would win at least 35 seats, he posted this video of himself shouting, “Thirty-five!”

The text translates from the Dutch as:

35!!!!!! PVV largest party!

Other influencers posted similar sensational news:

As the votes kept coming in, De Telegraaf revised – upward – its projection of the seats PVV would have. Per their latest tally, PVV will have 37 seats, the Green Left alliance (PvdA-GL) 25, VVD (“People’s Party”) 24, NSC 20, Christian Union 3, D66 9, CDA 5, and the pro-farmer BBB 7. Like Israel, the Dutch has proportional representation, so that parliamentary elections are national elections.

De Telegraaf also reported a hyperbolic quotation from a VVD spokesman: “The campaign manager has already emigrated.” Exit interviews included several first-time PVV voters, saying, “Geert Wilders was the only choice for us.” Turnout nationally was 72.1 percent.

De Telegraaf and Fox both used the word landslide to describe the results Wilders achieved.

Several like-minded heads-of-state from elsewhere in Europe quickly offered their congratulations:

The victor speaks

With the latest news, Geert Wilders addressed his supporters in Scheveningen.

The Dutch have hope again. The hope of the Netherlands is that the people will get their country back. That we will ensure that the Netherlands belongs to the Dutch again. That the flood of asylum seekers and immigrants is stemmed.

That people will have money in their wallets again instead of tens of billions of ridiculous spending. That the Netherlands will be safe again. That healthcare will be fixed again. Which party can best achieve this? [Cheers: PVV!]

I would like to thank everyone in the Netherlands for their support. [37] seats is a huge compliment, but also a huge responsibility for us. For every Freedom Party member. Because the hope of all those people, 2 million people voted for the Freedom Party! We will have to do our best to make that happen. We will do it.

I am appealing to the other parties. Until now we have been competing in an election campaign. This election is now over. The voter has spoken. Now we have to look for common ground. We will have to work together. PVV wants to do this, wand we are in a wonderful position. We can no longer be ignored by any party.

That means every party, including ours, will have to compromise. We will have to come up with solutions within the law and the constitution, which ensure that the hopes of the Dutch people, who today have chosen the agenda of hope, will be number 1 again.

I don’t know if it will all work out, but it won’t be up to us. Because we want to participate, we want to govern and with [37] seats, we will also govern. The PVV will be in the government.

Wilders will need 39 more seats to get the 76-seat majority he will need to govern. The members of the previous coalition government refuse to have anything to do with him. But the Farmers’ Party (BBB) has already pledged their 7 seats in support.

Wilders has been under some form of police protection for 19 years. In 2004, a Muslim assassin killed Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, producer of the feminist anti-Muslim film Submission.

Co-producer Ayaan Hirsi Ali left Europe for America in 2006. Wilders, who had worked to release the film, has been living in safe houses ever since.

At least two voters told De Telegraaf that the Fourth Arab-Israeli War induced them to vote for PVV.

The “center-right” coalition fell after several disastrous policies came to a head. Among them: proposals to force farmers to reduce their livestock, ban advertisements for meat, and then to buy out and close 2,000 farms to reduce “carbon emissions.”