Dutch election: what is next for the Netherlands?

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The day after the elections in Netherlands what is the feeling and what are the expectations in the country and outside?

Euronews correspondent James Franey interviewed Wiert Duk
Political commentator of the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper.

Wiert Duk: “It was not a battle between Geert Wilders and Mark Rutte, but this is a coalition country, where parties have to seek coalitions to govern and that’s exactly what’s going to happen now.
Even if Wilders would have been the first biggest party then he would have been excluded from governement, so, it’s very difficult to explain to other countries.

“Secondly, of course, something that the Dutch, those who didn’t vote for Wilders, also want to express is that this could be a halt to the populist revolt in Europe because after Brexit and Donald Trump a lot of people thought this would be the third domino break right in this populist movement and this has been stopped in Holland but we have to see because France and Germany, that’s is a completely different game.”

James Franey, Euronews:And what now for Mr. Wilders?

Wiert Duk: “There will be a future for him, probably in opposition; his campaign has been awful; he was invisible, he could have grabbed victory and he didn’t, so we have to ask ourselves, he has to ask himself: does he want to govern at all? It seems he’s content with influencing the debate from the sideline and so he could do this for a long time and it is true that he influences the debate because mainstream parties like the Christian Democrats, but also the liberal VVD, they have become much harsher on things like immigration and Islam than normally they would do. So, Wilders has his influence but I think he is now doomed and he will be sidelined for the coming years.”

James Franey, Euronews:How do you explain the fractured left in the Nertherlands, it seems that the Labour party was completely wiped out we had the rise of the Groenlinks, the Green left…

Wiert Duk: “Well the social democrats in Europe have been in crisis for a long time, this actually the end of this crisis probably here in Holland, either they will make a comeback in a couple of years or they will completely wiped out and they will be replaced by this movement of green left young millennials who have now in Jesse Klaver a very attractive and also a pretty strong leader because his campaign was absolutely very good.”

James Franey, Euronews:Do you think there could be a new so called populist uprising but on the left wing?

Wiert Duk: “I think Mr. Klaver is not a populist, of course, he is like a populist anti-populist; he uses the methods and style of populists and he has been very successful with this. So, yes, I think on the left young people they feel a need for personalities like Jasse Klaver. So, he could becomes really big.”