According to members of the EenVandaag Opinion Panel, the PVV’s victory in the House of Representatives elections is the political moment of the year. The fall of the cabinet and the announced departure of Mark Rutte follow at a considerable distance.
EenVandaag presented the Opinion Panel with ten moments from which the panel members could choose a maximum of three. More than 31,000 people participated in the study. According to the vast majority of respondents, the PVV’s election win was the most defining political moment of 2023.
Never before such an outspoken winner
“In all the years that we have asked our panel members about the most important political moment, we have not seen such an outspoken number 1,” says Charlotte Nijs of the Opinion Panel about the result.
BBB capitalized on dissatisfaction with a profit at the Provincial Council elections in March, the fall of the cabinet in the summer, the subsequent announced departure of Mark Rutte: according to her, these are all events that seem to have been a prelude to this moment.
‘It has an impact on people in the country’
Even Kajsa Ollongren’s infamous ‘function elsewhere’ note during the previous cabinet formation – which would ultimately become ‘Political Moment of 2021’ – was not ticked as often at the time as the PVV win is now, says Nijs. “That says enough about the impact of this moment on people in the country.”
“Suddenly Geert Wilders can become Prime Minister of the Netherlands. Until a few weeks ago, no one expected that this could happen now,” she explains. “Whether the PVV will soon be the largest party in a coalition or in the opposition with 37 seats: with this win, Wilders will in any case have a significant influence on the political course that the Netherlands will take in the coming years.”
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Geert Wilders responds to PVV election win as ‘Political Moment of 2023’
Political moment for right and left
Not only right-wing voters see this as the political moment, this event is also top priority for voters of almost all left-wing parties. Right-wing voters do have a somewhat more positive feeling about it than left-wing voters. A BBB voter says: “Politics has gone left for far too long while the Netherlands wanted to go right. Finally, they can no longer ignore that.”
More towards the political center, people are not particularly happy, but they can follow PVV voters in their dissatisfaction with the politics of recent years. “I never expected the PVV to win, but it says everything about the great dissatisfaction of the Dutch,” says an NSC voter. “I don’t support it, but I do agree that things should be different.”
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VVD voters: ‘Our own fault that PVV won’
Although the PVV win was also highly appreciated by VVD voters, they are less enthusiastic about it. They explain that their party, and especially party leader Dilan Yeşilgöz, made the PVV great by initially not excluding Wilders, only to change his mind later when his party appeared to be growing in the polls.
“You can now say that the VVD has made the wrong choices. I could follow the door ajar to the PVV, but it has also made Wilders great,” says a VVD voter in the Opinion Panel.
Confidence in Yeşilgöz plummeted
VVD voters are also not happy about the performance of their party leader after the elections. To the dissatisfaction of voters and members, Yeşilgöz does not want to join a majority coalition with the PVV for the time being. In the first seat poll by EenVandaag and Ipsos after the elections, this attitude resulted in a significant loss of seats.
The VVD can now count on 18 seats, 6 fewer than at the elections. Also, only half of the voters who voted VVD a month ago still have confidence in Yeşilgöz as party leader.
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Political commentator Joost Vullings responds to ‘Political Moment of 2023’
Left-wing voters concerned about ‘extreme right’
Left-wing voters are even more pessimistic about Wilders’ victory in the House of Representatives elections. A GroenLinks-PvdA voter writes about a historical moment in a negative sense: “This is really a breakthrough: the extreme right has become ‘normal’. What kind of a terrible country do we live in?”
Voters on the left flank also think that the PVV could not have become so big without the VVD: “The VVD not only dropped the cabinet for nothing, they single-handedly caused the PVV to win. Thank you Dilan,” says one panel member who voted D66.
Top 5 political moments
At a great distance from the PVV’s election win, in second place comes the moment when Rutte announced his departure from Dutch politics. The fall of the Rutte IV cabinet over asylum measures completes the top 3.
But the 20 seats that Pieter Omtzigt won with his new party NSC was also remarkable for many respondents and came in 4th place. The BBB’s win at the Provincial Council elections earlier this year, in which Caroline van der Plas’ party won in all provinces became the largest, finishing in fifth place.
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About the research
It research was held from 8 to 12 December 2023. 31,288 members of the EenVandaag Opinion Panel participated in the survey. After weighting, the results are representative of six variables: age, gender, education, marital status, distribution across the country and vote choice in the 2023 House of Representatives elections.
Participants were presented with a list of 10 important political moments from the past political year. Each participant could choose three moments from that list. Each participant was presented with the answer options in random order and people could also suggest their own moment outside the list.
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2023-12-23 17:28:54
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