"Exciting till the very end," Jetten says; Will wait for results before formation starts
D66 leader Rob Jetten agrees with PVV leader Geert Wilders that they must wait for the final election results before starting any formation talks. The tradition is that the largest party takes the lead, and Jetten wants to respect that. “It will be exciting until the very end,” Jetten told the media before meeting with his parliamentary faction on Thursday. “We’ll wait the next few hours, perhaps even days, to know the final result.”
The D66 and PVV are currently both projected to get 26 seats in parliament, with the PVV slightly in the lead. Though the votes that are still outstanding are mostly from groups where the D66 typically scores better than the PVV.
Jetten called it important to get a Cabinet installed quickly. “That responsibility now rests on the shoulders of all party leaders,” Jetten said. “This is the best result for D66 ever, and I’m very proud of that. I also see that more than a hundred seats are now going to positive parties that want to make a difference. So I think that’s the most important result for the Netherlands.”
Jetten did not say who he’d like to form a government with, but on election night, he said he hoped for a coalition from the “broad political center.” That suggests the VVD, GroenLinks-PvdA, and CDA.
CDA leader Henri Bontenbal played his cards close to his chest on Thursday. The CDA also experienced a major win this election, going from five to a projected 18 seats in parliament. “I woke up with a big grin on my face,” he told the media when arriving at parliament to meet with his faction. When asked whether the CDA wants to govern, he said: “Can I think about that tomorrow?” He added that a coalition without the CDA is also conceivable.
In the GroenLinks-PvdA chamber, the mood is much gloomier. The party lost five seats and Frans Timmermans resigned as leader. Kati Piri, number four on the candidate list, told the press: “We had all hoped for something different. We are incredibly grateful for what Frans has meant to this movement,” and then asked them to leave. On his way into the meeting, Jesse Klaver (number 2 candidate) was a bit more optimistic: “We have lost, but we are not defeated.”
PVV leader Geert Wilders and VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz haven’t addressed the press yet.
JA21 also won big this election, going from one to a projected nine seats in parliament. If the formation goes to a center-right Cabinet, the JA21 will be an essential partner. “We can definitely do business,” party leader JA21 Joost Eerdmans told the media. “We are not going left, and anything is possible on the right.”
If Jetten leads the coalition talks, a center-right Cabinet with JA21 instead of GroenLinks-PvdA will likely be a second choice. Eerdmans is then also in less of a hurry to get the formation talks done. “I’d rather have a stable Cabinet in a few months than a messy one before Christmas,” he said.
