THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Dutch election for all 150 seats in the lower Second Chamber of parliament is forecast to be a close race between the shock winner of the last election, Geert Wilders’ populist, anti-Islam Party for Freedom, and the center left bloc of the Labor Party and Green Left.
Here is a glance at the leaders of those parties and other contenders in the Wednesday vote.
Geert Wilders
Wilders has long been one of the Netherlands’ best-known lawmakers due to his outspoken criticism of Islam. But he was always on the opposition benches in parliament, until two years ago when his Party for Freedom swept to a stunning election victory.
Even after the win, he was denied the office of prime minister by coalition partners who balked at handing him the Netherlands’ top political post. Instead, he hand-picked career civil servant Dick Schoof to become premier.
The only other time Wilders came close to power was in 2010 when he gave political backing to a minority coalition formed by then-Prime Minister Mark Rutte. But Wilders did not formally join the administration and brought it down after just 18 months in a dispute over austerity measures.
Wilders, 62, has lived under round-the-clock protection for more than two decades years due to repeated death threats.
He was convicted of insulting Moroccans at an election-night rally in 2014. A typically strident Wilders condemned the ruling as a “political trial” that “dumped freedom of speech in the garbage.”
Frans Timmermans
A former Dutch foreign minister and European Commission vice president responsible for climate policy, Timmermans has been instrumental in his Labor Party formally merging with the Green Left party to form a center-left bloc that has run a close second to Wilders’ Party for Freedom in preelection polling.
Timmermans, 64, was thrust to international prominence when he gave an emotional speech to the United Nations Security Council shortly after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014.
Born in the southern city of Maastricht, he served in the Dutch army and trained as an interrogator. He learned Russian during his service and is known for fluently speaking several languages.
During the election campaign, his party filed a complaint with the police over fake, AI-generated images posted to a Facebook group showing Timmermans being arrested and taking money from a white man to give to a Muslim couple. The group was run by two members of Wilders’ party who are standing in this week’s election. Wilders apologized but did not announce any punishment for the pair.
Henri Bontenbal
The 42-year-old Bontenbal has overseen a dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal since he took over the leadership from Wopke Hoekstra in August 2023. But before he was able to turn around the party’s fortunes, he first he had to swallow a bitter defeat in the last election, when the Christian Democrats lost 10 of the 15 seats they held before the vote.
Despite the historic setback, the party kept faith in the father of two from Rotterdam and his vision for a return to decency in Dutch politics. A series of scandals in recent years has eroded trust in lawmakers and helped fuel the rise of populist parties.
Bontenbal, one of eight children from a Protestant family in the port city of Rotterdam, is a former sustainability adviser and stopped flying in 2006 because of the impact on the climate. He has loosened the party’s traditional ties to the Dutch farming community and supported the construction of nuclear power stations as part of the energy transition away from polluting fossil fuels.
Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius
A former refugee from Turkey, Yeşilgöz-Zegerius has struggled since taking over the leadership of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy from the Netherlands’ longest-serving prime minister, Mark Rutte.
As leader of the party going into the 2023 election, she looked in line to become the nation’s first female leader. Instead she oversaw a demoralizing defeat as Wilders’ populist party and the center-left Labor Party-Greens bloc overtook her on the left and right.
The 48-year-old remained at the helm of the VVD, but struggled as members of the fractious four-party coalition bickered with one another for months before Wilders pulled the plug on the coalition in a dispute over tougher measures to rein in migration.
Her party is again polling poorly and Yeşilgöz-Zegerius could face challenges to her leadership if the VVD suffers another heavy election defeat.
Rob Jetten
At 38 years old, Rob Jetten of the centrist D66 party is the youngest of the group. His party has risen in recent polls in the countdown to the election.
The former climate minister was first elected to parliament in 2017. Jetten led the party while D66 was part of the coalition in 2018 but then stood back, giving Sigrid Kaag a chance at the helm. He was reelected leader earlier this year for the election.
In 2020, he posted a video reading out homophobic messages that he has received during his time in office. He’s engaged to Argentine hockey player Nicolás Keenan and says that the two often refrain from holding hands in public in the Netherlands, a country long famed for its tolerance.
