Final day of campaigning for Dutch politicians as election nears – Europe live | World news

Pjotr Sauer

A two-meter-tall inflated elephant was put up by the pan-EU federalist party Volt in front of the Dutch parliament on Monday to draw attention to what the party believes is a lack of focus on the EU during this election cycle.

“Migration, security, climate, digitization, and every other issue that has been discussed in these elections can only be tackled if the Netherlands works together in Europe. But in this national election, the Netherlands’ place in the world is barely discussed,” Volt’s Dutch co-founder Reinier van Lanschot told the Guardian.

“This is the elephant in the room,” he said.

Volt, which according to one poll is projected to win 4 seats in the 150-seat assembly, describes itself as the first Pan-European movement, with parties in all EU countries. Van Lanschot added:

Even with two wars going on, Dutch politicians act as if the Netherlands is alone in the world.

Volt has campaigned against proposals made by other candidates to reduce the number of international students and staff at Dutch universities.

The party’s leader Laurens Dassen also criticised a recent statement made by Pieter Omtzigt, a popular MP whose New Social Contract (NSC) party is polling strongly, who said the Netherlands should “sometimes” follow the example of Hungary and Poland, two countries who have in the past blocked joint EU declarations.

“Politicians who say that we can get by without European cooperation are reducing our sovereignty, destroying our economy and destroying our country,” Dassen told the Guardian.

But it can be done differently: by working together we increase our ability to tackle the climate crisis. By working together we guarantee our safety. By working together we make the transition to the clean economy of the future possible.

Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius: The former refugee who wants to cut immigration, and become the first female Dutch PM

She is a former child refugee who wants to reduce immigration, has opened the door to the far right and could be the Netherlands’ first female prime minister.

Even before she became justice minister, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius had built an astonishing media profile. On a talkshow in 2016, she showed her grandmother Sara’s Louis Vuitton bag and told how she and her politically active Turkish Kurdish parents had fled Turkey when she was eight. They took a “rickety” boat from Bodrum to Kos with what fitted in that bag, then settled in Amersfoort, 30 miles south-east of Amsterdam.

By the time she was elected to parliament in 2017, after working as a VVD councillor, she had 45 TV appearances under her belt. Political journalist Sheila Sitalsing said: “As a councillor, she’s been a guest on all the programmes your average MP would kill to appear on.”

Yeşilgöz-Zegerius started her career with the Dutch Socialist party, then the Labour party, but found her feet in the centre-right VVD. She embraced being called a “pitbull in high heels” for her campaign to ban street harassment, and talked openly about her marriage, battles with an immune condition and hesitation about having children. Last year, she cut off a lock of her hair on live TV – choosing a section from the back – in support of women in Iran. “She’s a talkshow darling,” says du Pré.

As justice minister, she has criticised the “woke agenda”, extreme-right politicians and conspiracy theorists, and launched a Europe-wide anti-crime drive. When the government fell in a row over immigration, she said family reunification should be restricted, arguing that she would not have had the chances she had in a country with more refugees.

Recently, she told the rightwing tabloid De Telegraaf that, unlike Rutte, she would not rule out forming a coalition with Geert Wilders’s PVV, the far-right and anti-immigration party, and she repeated this today.

Carola Schoor of Leiden University’s politics programme, said: “She’s a tough lady. A lot of people like her. And she has an agenda that will appeal to people who maybe don’t want a woman, or someone from Turkey, as prime minister.”

Read the full story here.

Jon Henley

Pieter Omtzigt: the Netherlands outsider whose politics is firmly in the centre

Usually in European elections the insurgent candidates come from the outer reaches of the political spectrum: the far left or, more often of late, the far right. This one comes solidly from the centre. He could hardly be less fringe if he tried.

Days after Pieter Omtzigt, a Dutch Christian Democrat MP for 18 years, announced in August he was founding a new party to “do politics differently”, it was topping the polls. Two days from the vote, it is vying for the lead in the parliamentary election.

The outcome of Wednesday’s ballot remains far from certain. But analysts say the meteoric rise of Omtzigt’s New Social Contract (NSC) reflects his personal reputation, the political space he occupies, his promise of democratic reform and, not least, the fragmented state of Dutch politics.

With many people still undecided and polls suggesting tactical voting may prove a decisive factor in the ballot, Omtzigt – who has ruled out entering a coalition with the anti-Islam Geert Wilders – may yet benefit from last-minute allegiance-switching aimed at heading off a possible far-right surge.

The 49-year-old is perhaps best known for his key role in toppling the government of Mark Rutte in 2021 over a child benefit scandal in which more than 20,000 families were wrongly accused of fraud, many on the basis of ethnicity.

Read the full story here.

Dutch party leaders have clashed in a tetchy televised debate, as the Netherlands election campaign entered its final days.

The country’s six main party leaders confronted each other in Rotterdam on Monday night, as a poll suggested Frans Timmermans’ GreenLeft/Labour was neck and neck – on 27 seats of a total 150 – with the party that has led the past four governments, the People’s party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) under Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius.

The poll also showed a six-seat gain to 26 seats for Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam Party for Freedom, which has been campaigning on distrust in government and an immigration “stop”. Support for the centre-right backbencher Pieter Omtzigt and his New Social Contract dropped four seats to 21 – although after the poll was taken, Omtzigt said he would be a prime ministerial candidate, one uncertainty that was troubling voters.

During the debate, the six main party leaders, including Farmer-Citizen Movement’s Caroline van der Plas and liberal democratic D66 leader Rob Jetten, interrupted each other and failed to agree on any subjects except the housing crisis.

The ill-tempered spectacle came as the poll suggested that a previous survey last week – which showed a surge for the far-right Party for Freedom – may also have galvanised progressive votes for GreenLeft/Labour.

Read the full story here.