Immigration & Asylum policy pushed voters to far-right PVV: Survey

Nearly 2.5 million people in the Netherlands voted for far-right political party PVV in the 2023 General Election, giving the party the highest number of seats in the lower house of Parliament, according to exit polls from Ipsos. The primary issue motivating PVV voters this year was immigration and asylum reception.

Some 80 percent of PVV voters identified that as a key issue, according to surveys conducted by Ipsos on behalf of NOS and RTL Nieuws. Nationally, the issue was especially important to 52.2 percent of the 10.4 million people who cast a ballot on Wednesday.

The cost of living was also important to 75 percent of PVV voters. Healthcare was also an issue of urgency for 75 percent of the party's voters. The other main issues for the PVV were trust in the current government, and norms and values. Both were identified as critical by 65 percent of voters, and rounded out the top five issues for the PVV voters.

Cost of living was the most important issue regardless of party, with an average of 61 percent of voters naming that as an issue of importance. The same percentage also mentioned trust in the government, and 60 percent cited norms and values.

National security was the fourth most important issue nationally, named by 56 percent as a key issue, according to Ipsos. Immigration and asylum rounded out the top five.

The Ipsos exit poll projected the PVV to take 35 of the 150 seats in the lower house of Parliament, up from 17 in the 2021 election. The party won 20 seats in 2017, 15 in 2012, and 24 in 2010, when it propped up former VVD leader Mark Rutte's minority Cabinet, giving Rutte his first term as prime minister.

Wilders left the VVD in 2004 after trying to push the party towards the far-right fringes by calling for radical Islamic people to be deported, and life imprisonment for repeat criminal offenders. He launched the PVV with a debut in the 2006 election, winning nine seats in his party's first election.