Keine populistische Wende Eine Bilanz der niederländischen Wahlen 2017

Only seldom have Dutch general elections created as much international media attention as those of 2017. Other than the forecasts predicted, the populist far-right PVV of Geert Wilders didn’t succeed in winning a parliamentary majority. In the last days of the election, the liberal VVD of the current prime minister Mark Rutte managed to change its shortfall into a slim majority. On the other hand, the social democratic PvdA had to put up with the greatest loss in Dutch parliamentary elections ever. This article examines how each party reacted towards the forecast roller coaster with different election strategies and analyses how the big difference between the forecasts and the de facto outcome of the elections can be explained. The elections led to an extremely fragmented parliament with a total of 14 political parties. Although the Dutch have long been familiar with a multiple party system, the steady influx of the populist parties has made it more and more difficult for the parties of the political center to form a stable and effective government.