The PVV is out: What now for the Dutch government?
After the PVV pulled out of the Schoof I Cabinet and Geert Wilders recalled all his Ministers from the Cabinet, the remaining Cabinet members and Prime Minister Dick Schoof will meet at 1:30 p.m. to discuss how to proceed. The Cabinet could try to continue as a minority Cabinet, but the PVV took 37 parliamentary seats with it, so it seems more likely that the Schoof I Cabinet will resign, and new elections will follow.
The Schoof I Cabinet was suffering in the polls in recent months. Last month, an Ipsos I&O poll showed that only 10 percent of voters thought the Cabinet was taking good measures. And except for the VVD, the coalition parties have not been performing well either.
The latest poll by Maurice de Hond on April 26, following the spring budget update, had GroenLinks-PvdA surpassing the PVV in the polls for the first time. The left-wing combination had 29 virtual seats, the PVV was down to 28.
Support for the NSC plummeted from 20 seats won in the November 2023 elections to 1 virtual seat. And the BBB dropped from seven to three seats. Only the VVD held up in voters' regard. Dilan Yeşilgöz’s party stands at 26 seats in the polls, up two from the 24 it won in the parliamentary election.
The NSC and, to a lesser extent, the BBB will likely be reluctant to hold a new election now. But without the PVV, the remaining coalition parties only hold 51 of the 150 seats in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament. That means they’ll need the support of 25 opposition parliamentarians to get any bills through the lower house.
That could be possible if they can get the support of Frans Timmermans and his GroenLinks-PvdA (25 seats), also securing a majority in the Eerste Kamer, the Dutch Senate. But it is not yet clear whether Timmermans, who often warned against cooperation with the PVV and Wilders during the Cabinet formation phase, will be cooperative. His party is doing well in the polls, and he has already called for new elections.
