A Crisis of Conscience: Dutch Voters ‘Looking for a Savior’

The Dutch Data Protection Authority recently warned voters not to use artificial intelligence for advice on how to cast their ballots in the Oct. 29 parliamentary elections.

The Authority’s researchers found that AI chatbots were biased toward extremism, suggesting voters support either the far-right Freedom party or the left-wing GreenLeft–Labor alliance, reported Agence France-Presse. AI chatbots failed to mention moderate parties “even when the user’s input exactly matches the positions of one of these parties,” the researchers said.

The AI chatbots appeared to be reflecting the tensions rising throughout the Western European country as the elections draw near.

Wilders, who caused the Dutch coalition government to collapse when he left it in June after his colleagues rejected his proposal to crack down on migration from the Middle East and elsewhere, is now leading in the polls, wrote the Robert Schuman Foundation. Wilders’ party won first place in the 2023 elections, too, but other lawmakers rejected his bid to become prime minister.

The center-right Christian Democratic Appeal is forecast to come second. GreenLeft–Labor is running third.

Observers at Reuters described the election as a test of whether voters would support Wilders’ tough stance on migration – at a time when right-wing parties are surging in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany – or turn toward more centrist parties that would prefer less radical approaches on foreigners in the country.

The energy is behind Wilders. On Oct. 14, for instance, 300 demonstrators assembled at Houten town hall to voice their opposition to a 337-person asylum shelter in the municipality, the European Conservative reported.

Some say Wilders’ growing support is democracy in action, while others worry that momentum is threatening the country’s democracy.

“The Netherlands has seen an alarmingly rapid normalization of far-right rhetoric,” argued researcher Leonie de Jonge and PhD candidate Esmee Bakker at the University of Tübingen Institute for Research on Far-Right Extremism in the Conversation. “This election may prove more than just another chapter in political instability, but a defining moment for the country’s democratic future.”

In a sign of how things could change dramatically, many of Wilders’ and other far-right political parties’ proposals would violate Dutch law, added Euronews, citing a report by the Dutch Bar Association.

Still, Wilders’ opponents appear divided. GreenLeft leader Frans Timmermans, a former vice-president of the European Commission responsible for climate action, was a top contender to become prime minister. Now, however, the Christian Democratic Appeal’s Henri Bontenbal is surging as the preeminent Wilders’ alternative, and the likely pick for the next prime minister.

Part of that reason is, as a recent survey found, that only 6 percent of Dutch people polled still trust politics. As a result, voters in the country are looking for a savior, someone to restore a sense of normalcy and trust, the old spirit of compromise that characterized Dutch politics for so long, wrote World Politics Review.

“The country is experiencing a nationwide crisis of confidence,” it said. “Against that backdrop, many are searching for a vessel in which to place their hopes: someone to restore a sense of normalcy and trust. This time it is Bontenbal.”