PVV hammers on migration, others see end of "Wilders era" in last debate before election
The last debate on NOS before the parliamentary election held few surprises. PVV leader Geert Wilders insisted that he was the only one truly addressing the problems in the migration chain. Rob Jetten (D66), Henri Bontenbal (CDA), and Frans Timmermans (GroenLinks-PvdA) felt it was time for the end of the “Wilders era.” And VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz repeatedly stressed that it was a vote between a future left-wing or center-right Cabinet.
The polling stations in the Netherlands are open, and the final polls showed that this will likely be a tight election, with five parties having a chance of becoming the largest - PVV, GroenLinks-PvdA, D66, CDA, and VVD. Some 39 percent of voters hadn’t yet decided who they were going to vote for when the final polling was done, so the party leaders still had something to gain in Tuesday evening’s debate.
Jetten and Wilders clashed on asylum, with the D66 leader positioning himself as the anti-Wilders. “The Netherlands doesn’t want another 20 years of embarrassing behavior,” Jetten said, referring back to Monday’s debate in which he said that Wilders managed to destroy the Netherlands’ hard-won image of a proud and tolerant country with two decades of hateful politics. Jettens said he wanted to be there for “disappointed PVV voters,” but added that the D66 chose different solutions than the far-right party.
Wilders shot back that the D66 voted down all laws for stricter asylum policies. Jetten responded: “An almost embarrassing tearful rant for someone who, with 37 seats and his own Minister for Asylum and Migration, hasn’t yet passed a law in parliament.”
Yeşilgöz repeatedly brought various topics back to a choice between left-wing and center-right, stressing the latter as the right choice. According to her, left-wing GL-PvdA voters will wake up on Thursday with “a hangover and the bill” because the party’s housing plans are far too expensive and it wants to increase regulations too much.
CDA leader Bontenbal lost the calm he maintained through the debate when the VVD leader asked him again to choose between left-wing and center-right. Voters are “fed up to the bone” of the “VVD’s political games,” Bontenbal said. “You opened the door for Wilders and plunged the country into chaos.”
The CDA leader also took a swipe at Timmermans. “While the house was on fire, GroenLinks-PvdA stood on the sidelines, explaining what was wrong,” Bontenbal said. “With five seats, the CDA was constantly busy putting out fires and pushing the Nehterlands forward.”
Bontentbal believes it is time to turn the “dark page in Dutch politics,” and put an end to the time of the PVV holding the majority. That was something the D66 and GroenLinks-PvdA could agree with. Timmermans said he wanted to “close the Wilders era,” in which hatred has become dominant.
Wilders said that Timmermans had neglected his original voters and the PVV had won them over because “you were too arrogant to take them seriously.”
Final polls
The final election polls on Tuesday showed that the PVV and CDA had lost significant support over the past week. In that time, Wilders had joined the election debates for the first time, and Bontenbal was criticized for saying religious schools should be allowed to reject same-sex couples. He apologized and took back the statement a short time later, but the damage had been done. The D66 has been climbing steadily in the polls, GroenLinks-PvdA remained relatively stable, and the VVD regained some of its lost support.
With that, all five parties are pretty close together and seem to have a chance of becoming the biggest in this election. The polls have the PVV as the largest with between 23 and 29 seats in parliament, followed by GroenLinks-PvdA and D66 with around 23 seats. CDA and VVD were projected to win around 19 seats.
