Geert Wilders, the hard-right politician who won a shocking victory in the last Dutch elections, said on Wednesday that he was willing to forgo becoming the prime minister of the Netherlands — for now — in an effort to increase the chances of forming a right-wing coalition.
Long an anathema to mainstream politicians, Mr. Wilders has been at the center of coalition negotiations in the months since his decisive election victory in November. While it is now highly unlikely that he will be the next prime minister, other parties have broken a taboo that was in place since 2012: They will have to find a way to govern with Mr. Wilders’s Party for Freedom in some form.
“I can only become prime minister if ALL parties in the coalition support it. That wasn’t the case,” he wrote on social media. He added that he wanted a right-wing cabinet and less immigration.
“The love for my country and voter is big,” he wrote, “and more important than my own position.”
Mr. Wilders’s move increases the chance of a right-wing coalition in which his party will play a role, something that had long been unthinkable in the Netherlands, which has been regarded as one of Western Europe’s most liberal democracies.
The alliance probably will not be a traditional majority coalition, in which the biggest parties of the country form a majority in the House of Representatives, agree on a coalition arrangement and then start governing together.
Mr. Wilders has been negotiating for a way to form a government with the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, a center-right party that governed for the past 13 years; the Farmer Citizen Movement, a populist pro-farmer party; and New Social Contract, a new centrist party.
Together, these four parties have 88 seats in the House of Representatives, a comfortable majority, but the party leaders did not agree on a way to work together under Mr. Wilders’s leadership.
The four parties have signaled that they are willing to work together in a different form: a cabinet that includes political outsiders. Choosing this construction, rather than a traditional majority coalition, aims to create more distance between the cabinet and the Parliament, said Simon Otjes, an assistant professor of Dutch politics at Leiden University.
But one way or another, the other parties in the coalition will have to find a way to work with Mr. Wilders’s Party for Freedom.
It is too soon to know who will become the Netherlands’ new prime minister, but it could be an experienced former politician who would advance a right-wing agenda. Mr. Wilders will continue to serve as his party’s leader in the House of Representatives.
Mr. Wilders’s decision is a gesture toward the other parties, said Janka Stoker, a professor of leadership and organizational change at the University of Groningen. “You could call it a gesture of leadership.”
Mr. Wilders won national elections convincingly in November. Nearly a quarter of Dutch voters chose his party, which took 37 of 150 seats in the House of Representatives, a big number by the standards of a Dutch party system that rests on consensus and coalition building.
Mr. Wilders, who founded his Party for Freedom in 2006, is one of the Netherlands’ best-known politicians and the longest-sitting member of the House of Representatives, where he has served since 1998. For about two decades, he has been a fixed member of the opposition.
Mr. Wilders has said he wants to end immigration from Muslim countries, tax head scarves and ban the Quran. He has called Moroccan immigrants “scum.” While he has declined to step away from prior comments, Mr. Wilders has pledged that he will respect the Dutch Constitution during coalition negotiations and has said he will put some of his most controversial — and unconstitutional — plans on hold since the November election.
Negotiations about forming the next government will continue in the coming weeks and months, and experts warn that a lot can still happen as talks continue.
“It remains speculative,” Dr. Stoker said. “But in the current situation, this is a breakthrough.”
A few hours after announcing that he would step away from the chance of becoming prime minister for now, Mr. Wilders kept the hopes alive for any supporters who might have been disappointed with his announcement.
“And don’t forget: I will still become the prime minister of the Netherlands,” he wrote. “With the support of even more Dutch people. If not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow.”
