美国国家公共电台 NPR Exit Polls Suggest Dutch Rejection Of Nationalist Candidate Wilders

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

In the Netherlands, the polls have closed on an election that's being watched around much of the Western world. Nearly all of the attention has been on the anti-immigrant candidate Geert Wilders. Wilders was linked to the populist momentum 1 that began with Britain's vote to leave the European Union and continued with President Trump 2's election.

The official results may not be known until early morning. But exit polls are out. So let's get the latest news from NPR's Frank Langfitt, who's in The Hague. And Frank, what are you seeing so far in those exit polls?

FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE 3: Well, it's pretty striking, Audie. The Prime Minister Mark Rutte's VVD Party looks like it will easily win, projected to get 31 seats in a Parliament of about 150 seats. The big story though really for the rest of the world outside the Netherlands is that Wilder's Party for Freedom is in a distant three-way tie for second place with 19 votes with the Christian 4 Democrats 5 and the D66 Party. That's a liberal party. And given all the attention that Geert Wilders has received, this is a big defeat.

CORNISH: Assuming these results actually hold when all the votes are counted, why do you think that Wilders' party didn't perform better?

LANGFITT: Really his rhetoric 6 I think for so many people here in the Netherlands was just too extreme. He was anti-Islam, anti-immigration. And as I traveled across the country - I really spent the last week traveling all over - and even his hardcore supporters would say, you know, we like his ideas, but we wish he wouldn't be so blunt in the things that he would say. Like, he would say we should get rid of Moroccans, said Islam is not a religion but an ideology 7 incompatible 8 with freedom. And even people who agreed with him winced 9 about this sort of stuff.

And what we're talking about is not the dog whistle politics that we talked about some times in places like United States or in Great Britain, but really he was being very direct that he didn't like certain groups and would like to see at least some members of those groups leave. I think that if these poll numbers show, I mean, these exit polls hold, it's going to kind of show that the Netherlands is still a pretty tolerant and open society, which is what it's traditionally been and what a lot of people in the Netherlands would like it to continue to be.

CORNISH: So help us understand what the next ruling coalition 10 might look like in the Netherlands and whether Wilders would be a part of it at all.

LANGFITT: Well, you know, Rutte, this is a big win. He did lose some seats. But he still came out way ahead. And he'll form a coalition 'cause it's such - there's - 28 parties ran. This is so, so different from the American system. He's going to have to get a bunch of other parties to work with him. But at this point because Wilders didn't do that well, he can probably ignore Wilders.

Had Wilders won and done quite well, that was going to put a lot of pressure on Rutte to work with him in some way - Wilders wouldn't have been the prime minister - but also continue to kind of lean to the right to respond to the voters. But he's probably not going to have to do that now.

CORNISH: One quick question. Over the past few days, there was a diplomatic row between Turkey and the Netherlands. Do we know if that affected 11 the vote at all?

LANGFITT: Well, I think Wilders was already falling in the polls before then. But what happened is Rutte was seen as being really strong against the Turkish government. The Turkish government had wanted to come here and rally its own citizens - Dutch citizens but also they're dual 12 citizens with Turkey - for referendum back in Turkey coming up I guess in April. And the Netherlands was uncomfortable with this. And they said, we don't want you to come because of security reasons.

And then a government official came anyway. And they expelled the person. And I think that that showed Rutte being tough, especially on borders, and also showing that, you know, the Netherlands makes the decisions about how its country's going to be run, which was a big message that Wilders had for his voters. So I think it put Rutte in a pretty good position.

CORNISH: Now, given that there are other populist parties running next month and France and later in the year in Germany, people were really watching this election in the Netherlands, right? But what do you think is the broader kind of political message coming out of the country right now?

LANGFITT: Well, again, if we wake up and these numbers pretty much match the exit polls, I think the answer's going to be there are limits to how far people will go in embracing populism. And here in the Netherlands, that limit is Wilders. So many people I talked to today at the polls were worried that he was going to do very well.

Had he won a decisive victory, I think Marine 13 Le Pen of the National Front in France would pointed 14 to him and said, you know, he's momentum. It's - we've had Brexit, Trump, Wilders, and now it's going to be me. And now, she doesn't have that to cite to her voters in France. And that just doesn't give her quite the same oomph that she might have going into the first round of voting in France beginning next month.

CORNISH: That's NPR's Frank Langfitt. Frank, thanks so much.

LANGFITT: Happy to do it, Audie.