LEIDEN, Netherlands — Europe must defeat Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Rob Jetten, leader of the progressive-liberal party, which exit polls on Wednesday night projected to win the Dutch election.
Asked by Euractiv whether he would back Ukraine no matter what, Jetten replied: “Absolutely – and there’s a very broad majority in this new chamber to support the Ukrainians no matter what, because we have to defeat Putin. We will always stand with the Ukrainian people.”
Exit polls suggested D66 would emerge as the largest party with 27 of the 150 seats in the chamber. If confirmed by final results, it would mark a historic victory for Jetten’s centrist movement after an election widely expected to be won by either far-right populist Geert Wilders or left-wing leader Frans Timmermans.
Addressing a raucous crowd waving Dutch flags, Jetten declared: “Millions of Dutch people have turned the page today.” He said voters had bid farewell to the “negativity and endless hatred” of the previous right-wing populist government that included Wilders’ Party for Freedom, which collapsed in June after Wilders fell out with his coalition over migration.
Jetten pledged to form a “stable” coalition, though which centrist parties will ultimately join him in government is likely to take months of negotiations to determine.
Exit polls placed Wilders’ party second, the right-wing liberal VVD third, and Timmermans’ GreenLeft-Labour alliance fourth.
Timmermans, a former top-ranking European commissioner, resigned as leader of his alliance earlier in the evening.
Jetten, who could become the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister, is a former energy minister who severely underperformed as party leader in the 2023 election but now appears to have staged a comeback.
Anupriya Datta contributed reporting from Brussels.
