Wilders Defeat Is No Reason for Complacency: Leonid Bershidsky

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the VVD Liberal party appears before his supporters in The Hague, Netherlands, March 15, 2017. REUTERS / Yves Herman

Geert Wilders‘ larger than expected defeat in Wednesday‘s Dutch election sets up a disappointing year for nationalist populists, who only last year appeared to have centrist elites on the run. But while it‘s fine to celebrate Dutch good sense, it‘s also useful to keep in mind that the problems that nearly handed Wilders a win are not going away.

A year ago, Wilders‘ anti-immigrant, anti-European Union party, PVV, appeared poised to win a large plurality in the election despite having just one member (Wilders) and no local political offices or campaign machine. It was almost certain even then that Wilders wouldn‘t get a chance to govern, since other big parties had refused to cooperate with him after a minority cabinet‘s failed attempt to work with the PVV in 2011. His election victory, however, would have further energized fellow nationalists in France, Germany and Italy, already encouraged by Brexit and Donald Trump‘s election.

Now that Wilders, according to exit polls, barely managed to win a tie for second place and only 19 seats in the 150-member parliament, that can hardly be held up as an inspiring example; being beaten by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, a center-right politician known for his tendency to flip-flop, is a particular humiliation for the Dutch nationalist, one of the pioneers of the global nationalist movement.