Geert Wilders’s election win leaves the Dutch in an awful quandary

ON NOVEMBERndEU PVVPVV PVVVVDNSC 22 voters awarded a whopping 37 of the 150 seats in the Dutch parliament to the anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, anti-Party for Freedom (), led by Geert Wilders. It was a bombshell, putting the far ahead of any other outfit, and it leaves the Netherlands in a quandary. For years, most major parties have ruled out a coalition with Mr Wilders. But the results make it nearly impossible to form a government without him. The Netherlands, whose politicians were among the first to turn to anti-Muslim populism in the early 2000s, may now get its first populist prime minister.The size of the ’s victory came as a shock to everyone in Dutch politics, including Mr Wilders. In a cheering crowd of party members at a small bar in Scheveningen, a seaside neighbourhood of The Hague where his support is strong, he proclaimed that he intends to be part of the next government, whether as prime minister or otherwise. “The Dutch people sent a very clear signal,” he said. “They can’t go around us.” He may well be correct. The second-biggest outfit, an alliance of the Labour and GreenLeft parties, got 25 seats. The Liberals () of the incumbent prime minister, Mark Rutte, took just 24, and New Social Contract (), a brand new centre-right party, won 20. The three parties are not enthusiastic about co-operating with each other, and would need at least one smaller party to form a majority.