The Netherlands produced one of Europe’s largest electoral surprises this week. Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom, or PVV, won 37 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, making it comfortably the largest party after years in which Wilders remained an influential but politically isolated figure. The result represents an extraordinary increase in the PVV’s parliamentary strength and places immigration, asylum and national identity at the centre of Dutch coalition negotiations. Yet Wilders remains 39 seats short of a parliamentary majority. Winning the election has therefore given him the strongest bargaining position, not an automatic right to become prime minister.
That distinction is important because political language tends to compress elections into a simple story of winners and losers. Wilders won. The outgoing governing parties lost substantially. Therefore, the intuitive conclusion is that Wilders should govern. But the Netherlands does not directly elect a prime minister. Dutch citizens elect a parliament through proportional representation, and a government needs enough support inside that parliament to function. Thirty-seven seats are more than any other party received, but 113 seats were won by parties other than the PVV. Democratic legitimacy therefore cannot be determined by plurality alone.
This is the same institutional principle that appeared in Spain earlier this year. A party finishing first receives a strong mandate to participate in government formation and can reasonably argue that voters want its concerns taken seriously. It does not acquire the votes of everyone who supported somebody else. If several smaller parties representing a parliamentary majority can construct an alternative government, that coalition is not inherently less democratic simply because none of its members individually finished first. Parliamentary democracy aggregates representatives into majorities rather than automatically converting the largest minority into executive power.
Wilders’ result nevertheless creates a serious challenge for parties that have historically resisted cooperating with him. A political system can legally exclude a party from government while gradually creating a democratic legitimacy problem if that party repeatedly wins substantial support and voters conclude their ballots can never influence government. This is sometimes described through the idea of a cordon sanitaire, where mainstream parties refuse coalition cooperation with a party they consider extremist. Such barriers can protect liberal institutions, but they can also strengthen the excluded party’s argument that established elites form one cartel designed to prevent political change.
This creates a paradox. The more successfully mainstream parties isolate an anti-establishment movement, the easier it can become for that movement to present itself as the only genuine opposition to the establishment. Every coalition formed without it becomes additional evidence for its narrative. Political exclusion can therefore reduce an extremist party’s immediate access to power while increasing its long-term anti-system appeal.
Yet the opposite strategy contains obvious risks. Bringing a radical party into government can normalise policies that mainstream parties previously considered unacceptable and give it control over ministries capable of implementing them. Participation can also provide institutional credibility and administrative resources. The argument that every popular party must receive government office would therefore confuse electoral rights with coalition entitlement.
Democracy guarantees Wilders the right to campaign, win seats and negotiate for government under the same rules as competitors. It does not require the VVD, New Social Contract or any other party to abandon its own political commitments in order to make him prime minister. Those parties were elected too. Their refusal to support particular policies can therefore be as democratically legitimate as Wilders proposing them.
This is where liberal democracy differs from simple majoritarianism. Elections determine political authority, but constitutional rights constrain what electoral majorities can legitimately do with that authority. A party winning 51% cannot abolish the political rights of the other 49% simply by invoking majority rule. Courts, constitutions and fundamental rights exist partly to prevent temporary electoral coalitions from converting political victory into unrestricted power.
Wilders’ long record of proposals concerning Islam makes that distinction particularly relevant. He has advocated policies including restrictions on mosques, Islamic schools and the Quran, although during this campaign he softened some of his rhetoric and indicated that other priorities were more immediate. Potential coalition partners will therefore need to decide not simply whether they like Wilders but whether a workable government programme can remain compatible with constitutional rights.
That is an institutional question rather than a moral purity test. Coalition negotiations can force radical parties to specify which campaign positions are actual governing priorities and which they are prepared to abandon. The process therefore functions as a moderating mechanism. Winning votes gives a party bargaining power. Obtaining majority support requires making enough of its programme acceptable to other representatives.
This is one advantage of coalition democracy. It rarely allows one electoral faction to convert a plurality directly into complete executive control. Parties need partners, and partners impose constraints. The cost is that voters can feel policies are negotiated away after elections. The benefit is that political programmes have to survive contact with other constituencies before becoming government policy.
Wilders’ victory also deserves explanation rather than simply classification as another far-right surge. Immigration and asylum were central to the campaign, but the underlying grievances include housing shortages, pressure on public services, distrust of established parties and concerns over the cost of living. Mark Rutte’s previous coalition itself collapsed in July because its members could not agree on migration restrictions. Wilders therefore entered an election where the political system had already demonstrated that immigration was capable of breaking a government.
Housing is especially important because the Netherlands faces a serious shortage. When housing supply cannot respond quickly enough to demand, every additional household intensifies competition over a scarce resource. Migration then becomes politically visible because new arrivals are easier to identify than planning restrictions, construction delays or decades of housing policy. A structural supply problem can therefore become interpreted primarily through the identity of people competing for the available homes.
That does not mean migration has no effect. Additional population increases housing demand. The analytical mistake lies in moving from “migration contributes to demand” to “migration explains the housing crisis” without examining magnitude or alternative causes. Political narratives become powerful when they transform complicated systems into identifiable causes, particularly when citizens already experience the underlying scarcity directly.
Wilders offers a simple causal story: reduce immigration and pressure on housing, welfare and public services will decline while Dutch political control increases. The simplicity is electorally powerful. Governing will test how much of the diagnosis survives implementation. Housing supply cannot be expanded merely by restricting asylum. Labour shortages may become more difficult if migration falls substantially. European free-movement rules constrain how far a national government can reduce some categories of migration while remaining inside the EU.
This is where populist politics encounters institutional and economic constraints. Campaigns identify political choices as though governments possess complete control over outcomes. Once in office, leaders discover treaties, markets, courts, coalition partners and administrative capacity limiting what can actually be done.
That does not mean governments are powerless. It means sovereignty is rarely absolute in an integrated economy.
The Netherlands benefits enormously from the European single market, international trade and movement across borders. Rotterdam is one of the world’s major ports precisely because the Dutch economy is deeply integrated internationally. Universities, technology companies, agriculture and healthcare all depend to varying degrees on foreign workers and international connections. A country can therefore want lower migration while remaining economically dependent on openness.
The real policy question is not open borders versus closed borders. Neither describes the Netherlands accurately. It is which forms of migration generate sufficient economic or humanitarian benefits to justify their costs, how quickly infrastructure can adjust and which level of government should bear those costs.
Asylum adds a moral and legal dimension because refugees are not simply labour-market inputs. European states have obligations towards people fleeing persecution, while voters retain legitimate interests in whether asylum systems are administratively sustainable. A system that takes years to determine claims harms both citizens and asylum seekers because uncertainty becomes permanent and accommodation capacity remains occupied.
Effective restriction and humane administration are therefore not necessarily opposites.
A competent asylum system should decide claims quickly, protect people entitled to protection and return those whose claims fail under lawful procedures. Administrative incapacity can make both humanitarian and restrictionist objectives harder to achieve.
This is why state capacity often matters more than ideological direction. A government promising lower immigration but incapable of processing applications efficiently may produce more visible disorder than a government with a somewhat higher migration target and better administration. Political arguments focus heavily on numbers because numbers are easy to communicate. Citizens experience systems.
The Dutch result also illustrates how established parties can lose ownership of issues when voters believe they have discussed them for years without producing results. Rutte governed for thirteen years and became one of Europe’s most durable leaders, yet his final coalition collapsed over migration. Wilders can therefore argue that mainstream parties had ample opportunity to solve the problem and failed.
Whether that argument is fair is less important politically than whether voters believe it.
Repeated failure creates space for outsiders.
Argentina demonstrated the economic version through Milei.
The Netherlands is demonstrating an immigration and identity version through Wilders.
In both cases, radical alternatives become more attractive when conventional parties lose credibility on the issue voters consider most urgent.
The comparison should not be pushed too far. Argentina faces an extraordinary macroeconomic crisis while the Netherlands remains a wealthy, institutionally stable democracy. The common mechanism is status-quo depreciation. Established parties normally benefit because voters fear uncertainty. When enough citizens conclude the established parties themselves produce unacceptable outcomes, the uncertainty premium attached to outsiders falls.
Wilders has spent years outside government and can therefore claim relatively little responsibility for existing policy. That is an enormous political advantage. Opposition allows politicians to identify problems without demonstrating that their solutions work.
Government removes that protection.
If Wilders enters a coalition, migration numbers, housing construction and public services become partly his responsibility. The anti-establishment politician becomes part of the establishment citizens can evaluate.
This is one argument for allowing radical parties to participate in government when they can construct legitimate parliamentary coalitions. Responsibility can moderate in ways exclusion cannot. A party forced to make budgets and comply with courts has to confront trade-offs that campaign rhetoric can ignore.
The risk is that participation can instead allow the party to weaken precisely those constraints.
Whether inclusion moderates radicals or radicals transform institutions depends heavily on the strength of the institutions they enter.
The Netherlands begins from a comparatively strong position. Courts, parliament, civil society, media and coalition government provide several independent constraints. Wilders cannot simply implement his entire programme because he won 37 seats.
This is democratic redundancy.
No single election hands one politician every lever of the state.
The coalition negotiations now beginning are therefore not an obstacle standing between voters and democracy. They are part of the democratic process voters chose through proportional representation. Wilders will need to persuade parties representing millions of other voters that enough common ground exists to govern.
Those parties should not refuse negotiation simply because engaging with him feels politically uncomfortable. Nor are they obligated to accept policies they believe violate constitutional principles.
The appropriate standard is transparent bargaining.
Which proposals will Wilders abandon?
Which migration restrictions will potential partners accept?
What protections remain non-negotiable?
What economic programme can actually command 76 seats?
Those questions transform an electoral signal into a governing programme.
The result may disappoint everyone partially.
That is usually what coalition government means.
There is also a broader European lesson. Nationalist and populist-right parties are no longer peripheral across much of Europe. Italy has Giorgia Meloni as prime minister. Finland’s Finns Party entered government this year. Sweden’s government depends on parliamentary cooperation with the Sweden Democrats. Marine Le Pen remains a major force in France. Wilders has now won the Dutch election. Treating all of these movements as temporary protest phenomena is becoming increasingly difficult.
The more important analytical task is understanding why their issues have become durable. Immigration, cultural integration, sovereignty and distrust of established institutions are not disappearing simply because mainstream parties dislike how populists frame them. If conventional parties want to weaken radical alternatives, they need credible policy responses rather than moral condemnation alone.
At the same time, electoral success should not immunise populist movements from scrutiny. A policy does not become liberal, constitutional or economically coherent because many people vote for it.
Popularity determines political authority.
It does not determine factual or constitutional validity.
That distinction needs to work in both directions. Mainstream parties should not treat voters as illegitimate because they support Wilders. Wilders should not treat institutions as illegitimate when they constrain policies that those voters support.
This is the reciprocal bargain of liberal democracy.
The election gives Wilders political power.
The constitution determines the boundaries within which that power operates.
Other elected parties determine whether he can construct a majority.
Courts determine whether government actions comply with law.
Voters eventually determine whether they approve of what results.
No single institution gets the final word on everything.
That fragmentation can look inefficient.
It is partly intentional.
The most important democratic question after Wednesday is therefore not whether Wilders “deserves” to become prime minister. Democracy does not distribute offices according to moral deservingness.
The question is whether he can build a constitutionally acceptable parliamentary majority.
If he can, excluding him merely because established parties dislike the election result would become increasingly difficult to justify.
If he cannot, governing without him is not automatically a betrayal of voters because the parties refusing him were elected too.
Thirty-seven seats represent an extraordinary political victory.
They remain thirty-seven seats.
The Dutch electorate has given Geert Wilders the strongest position in parliament.
It has not given him parliament.
What he can do with the difference will tell us much more about Dutch democracy than the shock of election night itself.
