European Election Upset for Geert Wilders as Dutch Turn Cold on Anti-EU Party

Dutch right-wing 'Partij voor de Vrijheid' (PVV) leader Geert Wilders
poses for the media after voting for the European Parliament

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Dutch exit polls confound predictions to leave far-Right and anti-Islam leader with 12.2 per cent of vote, behind all pro-EU mainstream political parties

Geert Wilders came fourth in European elections in the Netherlands on Thursday night, confounding predictions that he would lead a populist and far-Right backlash against the European Union across the continent.

Dutch exit polls put the far-Right and anti-Islam leader on 12.2 per cent of the vote, putting him behind all the pro-EU mainstream political parties.

'Definitive' exit polls put him behind the ruling centrist VVD on 12.3 per cent and almost three per cent behind the pro-EU D66 liberals and Christian Democrats, each on over 15 per cent.

Previous opinion polls had put Mr Wilders in the lead but there was widespread controversy over his alliance with the France’s Front National and the exit polls suggested that his share of the vote fell, compared with 2009, by 4.8 percentage points.

The result is a major blow to Mr Wilders who will lose a seat in the European Parliament with his MEPs now reduced to three out a total of 26 Dutch representatives. » | Bruno Waterfield, Scheveningen | Thursday, May 22, 2014