CNN —
The far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) is leaving the Netherlands’ government over its policy for asylum-seekers, its leader Geert Wilders said on Tuesday, toppling the governing coalition.
“I signed up for the strictest asylum policy, not for the downfall of the Netherlands,” Wilders told reporters Tuesday morning. “And our responsibility for this cabinet therefore ends here.”
Wilders’ decision to withdraw support for the most right-leaning government in Dutch history has plunged the country’s politics into chaos. It leaves the government, led by Prime Minister Dick Schoof, with just 51 out of 150 seats in parliament.
Prime Minister Dick Schoof called the decision “unnecessary and irresponsible.” But speaking with reporters after a Tuesday afternoon cabinet meeting, he offered few details on his conversations with Wilders.
He said that without the PVV’s support, it was impossible for the government to carry on, and that he would remain in office leading a caretaker government until a new coalition takes over.
Opposition leaders have called for immediate elections.
Polls suggest that, were elections to be held today, the PVV would lose seats but remain the largest party, just ahead of the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy.
But that’s no guarantee that it would be able to enter a new government. Dutch politics features a constellation of parties, none of which has ever been able to command a majority of Dutch votes. Polls suggest that both center-right and center-left parties would gain from new elections.
Wilders’ PVV was the clear winner of a November 2023 election. But a coalition accord struck after months of haggling dictated that, while his party would join the government, he would remain on the sidelines, in parliament.
Wilders has a long history of anti-Islam and anti-immigrant rhetoric, He was convicted of discrimination after insulting Moroccan immigrants at a 2014 campaign rally, and his party calls for “no Islamic schools, Qurans, and mosques.”
Wilders last week held a rare, formal press conference to present the government with an ultimatum for hardening the country’s asylum policy – despite the fact that the minister for asylum and migration is a member of his own party.
“The PVV promised voters the strictest asylum policy ever, aiming to make it the strictest in all of Europe,” Wilders said Tuesday. “We proposed a plan to close the borders to asylum seekers, to stop them, to send them away. To stop building asylum-seeker centers, to close them.”
But the coalition, he said, refused his proposals.
“I could do nothing other than say that we are now withdrawing our support for this cabinet.”
