THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) \u2014 A senator from the Netherlands\u2019 Party for Freedom was appointed Friday to investigate possible governing coalitions after the far-right party\u2019s\u00a0election victory<\/a><\/span>, while the party of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte said it would support a center-right administration in parliament but not join the next government.<\/p> The Party for Freedom, or PVV, led by veteran anti-Islam lawmaker\u00a0Geert Wilders<\/a><\/span>, won 37 seats in the 150-seat lower house, indicating a seismic\u00a0shift to the right<\/a><\/span>\u00a0for the Netherlands. Rutte\u2019s People\u2019s Party for Freedom and Democracy won 24 seats, 10 fewer than in the previous election, according to a near complete count of Wednesday\u2019s votes.<\/p>After a meeting of party leaders at the parliament, PVV Senator Gom van Strien was appointed to investigate possible coalitions. Newly elected lawmakers will debate his findings on Dec. 6.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Van Strien said that he would begin meetings with party leaders on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dilan Ye\u015filg\u00f6z-Zegerius, the new leader of the People\u2019s Party for Freedom and Democracy, or VVD, tweeted that after losing 10 seats in the election, the longtime ruling party would \u201cmake possible and constructively support a center-right Cabinet with good policies,\u201d but wouldn\u2019t join a government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wilders called the decision, which was announced before formal coalition talks had begun, \u201cextremely disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The election result and appointment of Van Strien pave the way for Wilders to take the lead in forming a new coalition and potentially to succeed Rutte as prime minister. However, he will likely have to convince potential coalition partners that he would tone down some of his anti-Islam policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His party\u2019s election platform states that the Netherlands \u201cis not an Islamic country. No Islamic schools, Qurans and mosques.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking Friday at a meeting of far-right leaders in Portugal, Marine Le Pen of France called Wilders\u2019 win a vote of conscience \u201cthat attests for the defeat of those that have been in power for the past 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One potential coalition partner for Wilders is the recently formed New Social Contract party, or NSC, which won 20 seats. The\u00a0party\u2019s centrist leader, Pieter Omtzigt, said he couldn\u2019t accept \u201cunconstitutional\u201d policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Article 1 of the Dutch Constitution outlaws discrimination \u201con grounds of religion, belief, political opinion, race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or on any other grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an election-night victory speech, Wilders pledged not to push any policies that would breach Dutch law or the constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His foreign policy also has raised concern among the Netherlands\u2019 allies, Dutch caretaker Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking Friday at a meeting of far-right leaders in Portugal, Marine Le Pen of France called Wilders\u2019 win a vote of conscience \u201cthat attests for the defeat of those that have been in power for the past 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One potential coalition partner for Wilders is the recently formed New Social Contract party, or NSC, which won 20 seats. The\u00a0party\u2019s centrist leader, Pieter Omtzigt, said he couldn\u2019t accept \u201cunconstitutional\u201d policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Article 1 of the Dutch Constitution outlaws discrimination \u201con grounds of religion, belief, political opinion, race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or on any other grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an election-night victory speech, Wilders pledged not to push any policies that would breach Dutch law or the constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His foreign policy also has raised concern among the Netherlands\u2019 allies, Dutch caretaker Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) \u2014 A senator from the Nether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2973,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971\/revisions\/2973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}