THE HAGUE — Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Wednesday claimed a dominating parliamentary election victory over anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders, who failed the year’s first electoral test for populism in Europe.
Provisional results with over half the votes counted suggested Rutte’s party won 32 seats in the 150-member legislature, 13 more than Wilders’s party, which took only third place with 19 seats. The surging CDA Christian Democrats claimed 20.
After Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and Donald Trump’s election as president, ‘‘the Netherlands said, ‘Whoa!’ to the wrong kind of populism,’’ said Rutte, who is now poised for a third term as prime minister.
‘‘We want to stick to the course we have — safe and stable and prosperous,’’ he added.
Wilders, who campaigned on radical pledges to close borders to migrants from Muslim nations, close mosques, ban the Koran, and take the Netherlands out of the EU, had insisted that whatever the result of the election, the kind of populist politics he and others in Europe represent aren’t going away. ‘‘Rutte has not seen the back of me,’’ Wilders said after the results had sunk in.
His Party for Freedom clinched 24 seats in 2010 before sinking to 15 in 2012, and Wednesday’s total left him with about 12 percent of the voters.
Both France and Germany have elections this year in which far-right candidates and parties are hoping to make an impact. French President Francois Hollande congratulated Rutte on his ‘‘clear victory against extremism.’’
Rutte, who for much of the campaign appeared to be racing to keep pace with Wilders, may have profited from the hard line he drew in a diplomatic standoff with Turkey over the past week.
The fight erupted over the Netherlands’ refusal to let two Turkish government ministers address rallies in Rotterdam about a referendum that could give Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more powers. It gave Rutte an opportunity to show his statesmanship by refusing to bow to foreign pressure, a stance with widespread backing in the nation.
The turnout was estimated to have reached 82 percent.
In a subplot of the elections, the Green Left party registered a historic victory, turning it into the largest party on the left wing of Dutch politics, together with the Socialist Party.
The provisional results showed the Greens leaping from four seats to 14 in Parliament after a strong campaign by charismatic leader Jesse Klaver. It remains to be seen if the 30-year-old Klaver will take his party into the next ruling coalition, which looks likely to be dominated by Rutte’s VVD and other right-leaning parties.
Weeks, if not months of coalition-building talks may be required before a new government is installed.
Rutte had framed the election as a choice between continuity and chaos, portraying himself as a safe custodian of the nation’s economic recovery and casting Wilders as a far-right radical who was unprepared to make tough decisions.
