Wilders Dutch vote: Centre-right VVD rules out role in cabinet

The biggest party in the former Dutch government has ruled out a role in the next Dutch cabinet, after anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders' dramatic election victory.

In a blow to Mr Wilders' hopes of a majority, centre-right VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz said her party needed a different role, after losing 10 seats.

Political leaders met to consider their next steps in forming a coalition.

A scout from Mr Wilders' Freedom party will now assess who could take part.

The far-right PVV won 37 seats in Tuesday's election, far more than any other party, more than doubling its representation in the 150-seat parliament.

The scale of his victory has put pressure on centre and centre-right parties to help form a Wilders-led government.

The Dutch coalition process tends to take several months, and the first step in the process began on Friday with the appointment of Freedom party senator Gom van Strien as the scout who will hold initial talks with all the relevant parties.

Mr van Strien said he was aware it would not be a straightforward task, but that "in politics and society there is a great sense of urgency".

And as party leaders assembled for exploratory talks in the parliament building, Ms Yesilgöz, whose VVD party came third in Wednesday's vote, announced she would not take part in the next administration because Dutch voters had given a "clear signal".

"The big winners of these elections are the PVV and [new centrist party] NSC," she told Dutch TV. "But we will make a centre-right cabinet possible - so we will support that and won't block it."

Without the liberals, Mr Wilders will struggle to make up the 76 seats needed to form a majority. The only other major potential partners are the newly formed centrist New Social Contract and the centre-right Farmer Citizens Movement.

However, Ms Yesilgöz emphasised that her party would be prepared to play a constructive role as a tacit partner in supporting a minority government in parliament. The VVD's 24 seats could in effect hand him a working majority.

Mr Wilders said he was very disappointed by the VVD's decision, which he complained had been taken "without taking part in negotiations for a minute... and this isn't what VVD-voters want either, I think".

He complained that forming a cabinet could now take months and Ms Yesilgöz had not made it any easier.

Commentators were quick to point out that Geert Wilders had himself propped up Mark Rutte's first VVD-led government as a tacit partner in 2010, but he triggered its collapse little more than a year and a half later when he refused to back austerity measures.

Mr Wilders badly needs the support of New Social Contract, formed only in August by whistleblower MP Pieter Omtzigt, and the BBB Farmer Citizens Movement, which has a strong representation in the upper house, the senate.

By deciding not to be part of the cabinet, Ms Yesilgöz has also increased pressure on Mr Omtzigt to join a coalition, because with 20 seats he is the only other top-four party still available.

Mr Omtzigt said the timing of her announcement was odd and made the whole process more complicated.

BBB leader Caroline van der Plas complained that it was the centre-right liberals under previous leader Mark Rutte who had led to the cabinet's collapse in July in the first place, in a row over capping asylum numbers. Now again, she said, it was about playing party politics, "and not about what citizens want".

Her newly elected MPs were brought to the parliament building by seven tractors, one for each MP.

During the election campaign, Geert Wilders announced that his anti-Islam manifesto policies were being put on hold, as he presented a milder image to voters. But he did not hold back on his vow to stop what he called an "asylum tsunami", as well as deport illegal immigrants and demand work permits for EU nationals.

In a post on social media, Caroline van der Plas said that deportations or banning mosques or the Koran would require changing the constitution, which itself involved several steps to be endorsed by the parliament and the king.

"In short it's just not possible; stop scaring the children," she wrote.

Meanwhile, in a letter to the Freedom party leader, Muslim, Christian and Jewish organisations appealed to Mr Wilders to meet them soon to spell out his "promise to be there for every Dutch citizen, regardless of religion, sex or colour".