The Dutch provincial elections of Wednesday yielded unexpected, strong results for Thierry Baudet’s far-right Forum for Democracy (FvD) party.
The Green Left party did very well too, though, but their support is strongest in the urban areas and among highly educated voters. (A familiar theme in western liberal democracies, not?).
Front page of the NRC Handelsblad newspaper of Thursday. ‘Monster victory for Baudet. In a fractured political landscape, his Forum for Democracy (FvD) party with 12 seats in the House of Representatives is now a force to be reckoned with’. Top Right: Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s VVD-People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, in blue, also have 12 seats. He will have to form a new governing coalition and look to the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA, light green, 6 seats), GreenLeft (GL, purple, 9 seats), and Democrats 66 (D66, green, 6 seats).
