Wilders' anti-Islam PVV further increases lead in latest poll

Geert Wilders' anti-Islam party PVV is still gaining popularity in the polls. In Maurice de Hond's latest poll the PVV gained one seat over the past weeks, and 7 seats over the past four weeks. The anti-Islam party is now 10 seats ahead of ruling party VVD.

Over the past month the VVD, CDA, SP, D66, GroenLinks and PvdA all saw a decline in virtual seats, losing 9 all together. Together they now have just 87 seats. In 1998 the six parties scored more than 140 seats, according to De Hond.

It is also apparent that left-wing politics is losing favor in the Netherlands. The more left-wing parties - PvdA, SP, GroenLinks and D66 - now only have a joint 50 seats, or about a third of the electorate. Over the past two decades, the left-wing parties usually had about half.

In addition to DENK and VNL, there are four more new parties that are set to take part in next year's election - the Piratenpartij, Niuewe Wegen, Forum voor Democratie and Geenstijl is also launching a new party. That means that there will be even fewer seats for the traditionally big parties.

De Hond can't yet say whether the election in March 2017 will be a struggle between two parties. But if that happens, the struggle is likely to be between Wilders' PVV and current Prime Minister Mark Rutte's VVD. Whether the PvdA will take part in this struggle, very much depends on the outcome of the party's leadership election.

According to De Hond, it is impossible to say whether current PvdA leader Diederik Samsom or current Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher will be the new PvdA leader. But it is clear that if next year's elections come down to a struggle between the VVD and PvdA, Asscher will do much better than Samsom.