Netherlands still struggling to appoint a prime minister to succeed Mark Rutte

With the Netherlands still struggling to put together a right-wing coalition following last November’s general election, a new survey has identified the two most popular choices to become prime minister after far-right leader Geert Wilders ruled himself out last week.

Mr Wilders’s Freedom Party was the outright winner in November, taking 37 of the 150 seats in parliament. Since then, however, he has repeatedly failed to seal a four-party coalition with the liberal VVD, New Social Contract (NSC) and the farmer-citizen party, BBB.

Given Mr Wilders’s anti-Islam and anti-EU background, the prospect that he might follow Mark Rutte as premier has been problematical for both the VVD and the NSC. To avoid deadlock, all four leaders agreed last week to forgo the top job in a new cabinet and remain as party leaders in parliament.

As a result, the latest stage of the negotiations, which began this week, focuses on assembling an “extra-parliamentary” cabinet of experts, politicians and former politicians – a process from which it’s hoped a new prime minister can be agreed.

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As the talks grind on, however, a new survey of 16,000 respondents shows the Duch public has already decided who it wants to see in the top job: the same man it opted for in a previous survey when Mark Rutte first announced that he was stepping down.

That man is lawyer, former leader of the VVD in the lower house, and former defence minister, Klaas Dijkhoff – who also left politics last year because he wanted to spend more time with his family.

“The idea I personally have of how to be a father simply cannot be combined with the idea I have of how to be prime minister”, he said at the time, adding: “That more or less rules me out for the next 14 years.”

In the latest survey, 53 per cent of participants favoured Mr Dijkhoff, though there’s no indication that his attitude has changed.

Next, with 50 per cent support, comes Kim Putters, chair of the socioeconomic institute, who has just brought the second stage of the current coalition talks to completion and managed, apparently, to handle the four party leaders with a minimum of friction.

Third comes former defence minister Jeanine Hennis, a long distance off with 37 per cent.

Unless there is a radical change of heart by Mr Dijkhoff, the survey must favour the pragmatic Mr Putters as the popular favourite.

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