One of Europe's smallest countries is about to take centre stage in a political drama that could impact the future of the European Union and test the limits of the populist power that led to Brexit in the U.K. and the election of Donald Trump in the United States.

People in the Netherlands head to the polls on Wednesday after one of the country's most divisive election campaigns in decades. The results will be watched closely across Europe as a sign of whether the anti-immigrant populism that has gripped France, Britain and the United States is showing any indication of abating.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose Liberal Party is under siege, has called on the country to reject the narrow-mindedness of Freedom Party Leader Geert Wilders, who wants to halt to immigration, ban the Koran, close mosques and pull the country out of the EU.

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"I want the Netherlands to be the first country which stops this trend of the wrong sort of populism," Mr. Rutte said this week.

Polls show that Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has a slight lead going into election day. ROBIN VAN LONKHUIJSEN/AFP/Getty Images

There are some signs of hope for Mr. Rutte and others who worry about Mr. Wilders and the threat that his brand of divisive politics poses for the rest of Europe, where key elections are coming up in France, Italy and Germany.

Recent polls show Mr. Wilders losing ground and several smaller, pro-European parties gaining. But the picture remains uncertain and, with 28 parties contesting 150 seats, no one is confident of the outcome.



"The potential for these populist parties is always there," said Kristof Jacobs, a senior lecturer of political science at the Radboud University of Nijmegen. "It's a bit like these small fires, they can turn into big fires in an instant. But it's super difficult to predict when this is happening. And at the time when you think you have it under control, suddenly something happens."

Roots of disenchantment

In many ways, the Netherlands is a microcosm for the challenges facing many Western democracies: how to manage a changing economy without breeding resentment and a backlash from those feeling left behind.

On the surface, this country is a beacon of prosperity. The economy is booming, unemployment is at a five-year low and consumer confidence has reached the highest level in nearly a decade.

University students such as 22-year-old Sem de Koning don't even have to wait to graduate before landing a job. About one-third of his classmates at Erasmus University in Rotterdam already have jobs and he has no worries when he graduates next year.

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"It's pretty good right now," said Mr. de Koning, who is studying business. "For us, there are plenty of jobs."

But there are also cracks in that glowing exterior that have led to the rise of populists such as Mr. Wilders. His message taps into a growing unease among the middle class, people who have seen their wages stagnate for years and feel no better off than they did a decade ago. And while the middle class has stood still economically, the rich and the poor have done better.

"In the Netherlands, you have this odd situation, sort of a U-curve situation, where the poorest have done a little bit better than the middle class and the richest have done extremely well," said Brian Burgoon, a professor of international and comparative political economy at the University of Amsterdam. "And that's the kind of thing that really [upsets people]"

Part of the problem is the very nature of work in this country. The Netherlands has one of the highest rates of part-time employment in the EU and nearly one-third of the work force has flexible contracts, meaning their hours are not guaranteed.

That's how Bastion Baker has lived for the last seven years, bouncing around bars and restaurants in Leiden, outside of The Hague, with no set hours.

"They tell you we're trying to get you 30 hours a week, but there's no guarantee," said Mr. Baker, 29, adding that he got by but never saved much money. "Now I have a normal contract and that feels really great, to be honest. It's four days per week, 9 to 5, way easier than when I had my flex contract."

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Women, in particular, hold a large percentage of part-time jobs, with roughly 76 per cent working less than 36 hours a week, the highest level in the EU. That's partly because women were relative latecomers to the labour market in the Netherlands. But it has led to what Prof. Burgoon calls "the one-and-a-half job economy," where in order for families to make ends meet the husband holds a full-time job and his wife works part time.

"If you look at that issue, you see that the Dutch have, in a sense, outstripped anyone else in the [EU] in moving toward these more flexible and insecure economic lives for people," he added.

The rise of Geert Wilders

Just as the middle class felt a growing sense of economic insecurity, the government expanded benefits for the poor. That only fuelled Mr. Wilders's anti-migrant message because migrants are twice as likely to be unemployed, and five times more likely to be on welfare.

Dutch populist Geert Wilders. Michael Probst / AP File Photo

And that's why his call to shut the door to immigration and spend less on welfare for foreigners gets a receptive hearing. It only heightened during the recent refugee crisis when 90,000 migrants from places such as Libya, Iraq and Syria poured into the Netherlands in 2015 and 2016.

That, along with the perceived inadequacies of the EU, have also led Mr. Wilders to call for a Brexit-style departure, dubbed "Nexit."

Other factors have been at play as well. The assassination in 2002 of political leader Pim Fortuyn, who led an anti-Islamist party, and the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gough in 2004, after he made a TV program critical of Islam, encouraged Mr. Wilders to quit the Liberal Party and launch the Freedom Party in 2006.

Since then, he has rarely topped more than 20 seats in parliament and the threat of assassination has left him living in seclusion.

But that hasn't stopped Mr. Wilders from issuing fiery tweets and ratcheting up his rhetoric. He's also prompted Mr. Rutte and other leaders to sharpen their tone on immigration, with the Prime Minister recently saying that if immigrants don't like it in the Netherlands, they should leave.

The tone of the campaign has hurt people such as Raki Ap, a 32-year-old civil servant who came to the Netherlands as a child from Dutch New Guinea. He now feels uneasy walking the streets of The Hague where he grew up.

"For me, as someone with a foreign background, you can feel the communities in the Netherlands just crushing each other like this," he said while grinding his fists together.

"You see the mindset of people, the way they look at each other, it's changing." For the first time in his life, he feels vulnerable and worried about the future for his two children. "It's very sad to see it happen. But it's a reality."

The Trump effect

Heading into Wednesday's election, support for Mr. Wilders in opinion polls has fallen to around 13 per cent from 25 per cent last fall. He's now projected to finish with around 22 seats, just behind the Liberals.

But the Liberals haven't benefited from Mr. Wilders's decline and their seat total is expected to fall as well. Instead, a host of other parties have seen their support soar and some polls indicate up to 14 parties could win seats.

Kees Verhoeven, a member of Parliament with the centre-left D66 party, said that's a reflection of the declining support for Mr. Wilders and the disenchantment with the two main establishment parties, the Liberals and the Labour Party, which have dominated politics for decades.

Labour won 38 seats in the last election in 2012 and formed a coalition government with the centre-right Liberals, which won 41 seats. But polls show Labour could lose 30 seats on Wednesday and the Liberals could fall well below 40.

"This is the biggest change in the history of the Dutch elections," Mr. Verhoeven said.

For him, the real story of the election isn't Mr. Wilders, who will likely win about the same number of seats as he did in 2012. It's the growing support for pro-European parties such as D66 and the Greens.

The game changer, he said, has been Mr. Trump. "Trump has done so many strange things that people think if we vote for Wilders, we get the same thing here and we don't want it."

That's the message of Jesse Klaver, the 30-year-old leader of the Greens who has become something of a sensation in the campaign, drawing crowds of more than 5,000 people and leading some pundits to predict the party could quadruple its seat total to 16.

Mr. Klaver represents a sharp contrast to Mr. Wilders. He's the son of a Moroccan father and a Dutch-Indonesian mother, who has the looks of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the politics of Democrat Bernie Sanders.

"We are pro-European, we are pro-refugee and we are very left-wing," Mr. Klaver said during a recent campaign stop in Leiden. "I think people like Geert Wilders, the populists, are very dangers to the world. I think we have to make sure that we beat all the populists. Not only here in the Netherlands, but all over Europe."

What does this mean for the EU?

In the end, far from turning away from the EU and toward a populist future, there is a chance the Netherlands could become even more committed to Europe. And, it's not just here.

In France, Emmanuel Macron is leading the polls in the country's upcoming presidential election campaign with a pro-European agenda. And, in Germany, the Social Democrat's Martin Schulz, a former president of the European Parliament, has taken the lead from Angela Merkel in that country's national elections due in September.

Meanwhile populist parties in both countries, the National Front and Alternative for Germany, have seen their support dip. If Mr. Wilders fails to come out on top in the Netherlands that bodes well for the EU which is also seeing a turnaround in the euro-zone economy.

"This is a critical moment for Europe," said Anneke Kooijmans a Dutch social activist who spent much of the last few days travelling across the country in an orange bus, handing out tulips and urging people to reject populism.

"What we tell people is: You've seen Brexit. You've seen Trump. This is the end of the line for populism."

The election at a glance

Voters in the Netherlands head to the polls Wednesday for a historic election. Here's a look at some of the issues, players and figures.

What's at stake

A total of 28 parties are contesting 150 seats in the House of Representatives. The Netherlands uses a proportional system, meaning parties are allocated seats based on the number of votes they receive. It takes about 70,000 votes to win one seat and parties rank their candidates on lists. One party rarely wins a majority of seats and coalitions are common.

The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, or Liberals, headed by current Prime Minister Mark Rutte, formed the last coalition in 2012 with the Labour Party. But experts say this campaign has been so fractured that up to 14 parties could win seats and it could take as many as five parties to make up a coalition.

Who to watch

Geert Wilders has been getting most of the attention and his Freedom Party could win the most seats, although polls show his party finishing second to the Liberals. It's unlikely he will be part of any government coalition, however, because none of the other parties say they would be willing to work with him.

Jesse Klaver, the 30-year-old leader of the Green Left Party, could be a dealmaker. His party is projected to win up to 16 seats and he is keen to form a government. The centre-left Democrats 66, or D66, led by Alexander Pechtold, could also join a leftist coalition. That party hasn't been in government in 10 years.

What about Mark Rutte?

Mr. Rutte has been Prime Minister for nearly seven years. He led the last coalition between the Liberals and Labour, but the Labour Party is collapsing in the polls and Mr. Rutte will have to find new partners if his party wins the most seats, as polls now predict.

He's considered a skilled coalition-maker and, so far, D66 and the Greens have said they would consider working with him. The recent diplomatic row with Turkey has also helped Mr. Rutte, who won some kudos for showing leadership.

What about Nexit?

There has been much talk that the Netherlands might follow Britain out of the European Union in a kind of "Nexit." Mr. Wilders has been advocating Nexit and dumping the euro. But so far there is little support for the idea and many say the Britain's Brexit vote has made it less likely in the Netherlands. If anything, polls show voters moving toward pro-European parties.

What about the King?

Under the country's constitution, King Willem-Alexander serves as the head of state, much like Queen Elizabeth. And just like the Queen, King Willem-Alexander meets regularly with the Dutch Prime Minister, opens parliament and signs legislation into law.

Europe's big year

Ongoing: Brexit

On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Theresa May won the right to launch divorce proceedings with the European Union and begin two years of talks that will shape the future of Britain and Europe.

Ms. May, who was appointed Prime Minister shortly after Britain voted to leave the EU in June, faced down attempts in both the lower and upper houses of parliament to add conditions to legislation giving her right to launch the divorce. Both houses backed the "Brexit bill" and after securing symbolic approval from Queen Elizabeth, expected in the coming days, Ms. May has the right to begin what could be Britain's most complex negotiations since the Second World War.

This week: Netherlands

The Netherlands goes to the polls on Wednesday in elections for the 150-seat lower house of parliament. Unofficial results should be known by late Wednesday or early Thursday. The official result will not be published by the country's electoral commission until March 21. A day later, the old lower house will meet for the last time and on March 23 new lawmakers will be installed.

Prime Minster Mark Rutte of the right-wing VVD party holds a narrow lead in polls over anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders's Party for Freedom. But while Mr. Rutte is leading, his party is set to lose seats and Mr. Wilders looks likely to increase the size of his parliamentary bloc compared with five years ago. But other parties also are making gains – including the increasingly right-wing Christian Democrats, the pro-European Union liberal democrats D66 and the left-wing Green Left party led by 30-year-old Jesse Klaver. The 12.9 million voters are spoiled for choice in the country's splintered political landscape: A total of 28 parties are fielding candidates.

May: France

Recent opinion polls show Emmanuel Macron as the front-runner in the country's election and that he will go on to defeat far-right leader Marine Le Pen in a runoff, while Socialist candidate Benoît Hamon will be eliminated in the first round.

Voters in many countries choose their national leaders by going to the polls once. In France's most consequential election in decades, citizens will have to cast their ballot four times. It's not just the two-round presidential election concluding in May that will determine the country's direction. A new legislature will also be chosen over another two rounds of voting in June. Only then will a clear picture emerge of where France is heading politically.

2017/Early 2018: Italy

Italy's ruling Democratic Party (PD) will hold its leadership contest on April 30, the center-left group announced on Friday, a decision that effectively rules out any snap national election in June.

Looking to re-establish his authority over the feuding PD, former prime minister Matteo Renzi resigned as party secretary general last Sunday to open the way for a re-election battle that he hopes will see grass-roots members rally to his cause.

An opinion poll published on Feb. 24 said the new movement would win just 3.2 per cent of the vote, leaving the PD on 28 per cent – still the largest party in Italy. The anti-system 5-Star Movement was second-placed on 25.3 per cent.

If elections are not held in June, the next possible date would be late September. Failing that, the legislature would carry on until its natural end in early 2018.

With files from Reuters, Associated Press and Bloomberg News