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Dutch voters rebuked a far-right party in Wednesday’s national elections after it had caused months of political upheaval, and they unexpectedly threw support to a center-left party that ran on promises of stability and hope. That sudden reorientation is likely to usher in a more centrist government in the Netherlands, which says something about the state of not only Dutch politics but of populism in Europe more broadly. It shows that the far right, even in a place that had once seemed to be on an inexorable march toward greater power, is capable of hitting a roadblock. “We though it was almost a deterministic thing, that the radical right was always going to become bigger — that they were bulletproof,” said Kristof Jacobs, a political scientist at Radboud University, which sits near the German border. “Not so bulletproof after all.” Far-right parties that fail to deliver on their promises can be punished for that failure, Mr. Jacobs said. It had once seemed like nothing stuck to those parties, he added, because voters focused on their rhetoric. On Thursday, official counts showed that Geert Wilders’s far-right Party for Freedom, which had swept into power in 2023, had lost 11 seats in the Dutch House of Representatives. It was projected to tie with the center-left party Democrats 66, or D66, to be the largest group in the legislature. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
