Farmers-Citizen Movement will be the party with the largest vote in the Senate, which is a blow to Mark Rutte’s four-party coalition
An angry farmers’ party won shock Dutch elections, prompting its leader, “People, what happened?”
Caroline van der Plas’ Farmers-Citizen Movement, (BBB), is expected to be the same size party in the Senate. It will take 15 seats from the previous vote.
In the aftermath of months-long, turbulent farmer protests at government plans to reduce nitrogen emissions, GroenLinks/PvdA will likely win 15 seats.
Mark Rutte (the centre-Right Dutch prime Minister) insisted that his coalition government would survive after the four members of his party lost eight of the 32 seats in the 75 seat senateHe said that “this is not the outcome we wanted”, after projections indicated that his VVD party was on track to win 10 seats.
The government of Mr Rutte plans to meet EU climate goals by reducing livestock and by compulsory farm buyouts to decrease nitrogen emitted from fertilisers and manure.
The protests attracted global attention and gained the support of former US President Donald Trump as well conspiracy theorists who claim that the farmers were victims of a “globalist plot to steal their land.”
The victory of the BBB means that farmers will be able to form alliances and block green legislation in the senate, which is in a country that is second in agricultural exports after the US.Ms van der Plas stated Wednesday night that it was not all about nitrogen, and added that the people of the Netherlands were “fed-up”.
It is remarkable that the BBB has experienced such a rapid rise since it was founded in October 2019. In 2021, the BBB won one seat in the Dutch parliament.
The latest elections were a referendum on Rutte who has been in office since 2010, and is the longest-serving prime Minister in Dutch history.
A poll by Ipsos was conducted by NOS in the Netherlands and showed that 60% of respondents wanted to voice their opinions on the government, while 46% were against it.Newspaper AD predicted that Mr Rutte would have trouble keeping his government together following the huge win by BBB.
It stated that Rutte must do everything possible to keep his Cabinet in place, if it isn’t already falling apart from internal quarrels.”
Turnout in the election was 57.5 percent