Dutch election: Anti-Islam, far-right Geert Wilders bags shock victory

He's been called the Dutch Trump. He's been threatened with death countless times by Islamic extremists, convicted of insulting Moroccans and Britain once banned him from entering the country.

Now Geert Wilders has won a massive election victory in the Netherlands and is in pole position to form the next ruling coalition and possibly become the country's next prime minister.

His Party for Freedom (PVV) is projected to win 37 seats, according to the latest estimates, well ahead of their nearest rival: A left-wing alliance. 

However, Wilders will likely have to convince other parties to join him in a coalition - something that could prove tricky. His target is 76 seats in the 150-seat parliament.

An exit poll revealing his landslide appeared to take even a 60-year-old political veteran by surprise.

In his first reaction, posted in a video on X, formerly Twitter, he spread his arms wide, put his face in his hands and said simply “35!” - the number of seats the poll then forecasted his party had won. 

Wilders, with his fiery tongue, has long been one of the Netherlands’ best-known lawmakers at home and abroad. His populist policies and shock of peroxide blond hair have drawn comparisons with the former US President Donald Trump.

But, unlike Trump, he seemed destined to spend his life in political opposition.

The only time Wilders came close to governing was when he supported the first coalition formed by Prime Minister Mark Rutte in 2010. But Wilders did not formally join the minority administration and brought it down after just 18 months in office in a dispute over austerity measures. Since then, mainstream parties have shunned him.

They no longer can.

"We want to govern and... we will govern. [The seat numbers are] an enormous