COMMUNISTS today slammed the victory for far-right “sewer politics” in Wednesday’s Dutch general election.

Far-right Islamophobe Geert Wilders of the Party for Freedom (PVV) was set to secure by far the largest number of MPs in the country’s parliament today.

The victory represents one of the biggest political upsets in Dutch politics since World War II.

The result puts him in line to lead talks to form a new ruling coalition and possibly become the country’s first hard-right prime minister at a time of a right-wing lurch on the European continent.

Mr Wilders’s party was set to win 35 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament, more than double the 17 they won at the last election. 

Second-placed to the PVV was an alliance of the Labour Party and Green Left, which was forecast to win 26 seats. 

But its leader Frans Timmermans said: “We will never form a coalition with parties that pretend that asylum-seekers are the source of all misery.”

Pieter Omtzigt, of the New Social Contract party, which looks set to win about 20 seats, said that he would be open to talks.

The PVV’s policies include putting a total halt to accepting asylum-seekers and migrant pushbacks at Dutch borders.

It also advocates the “de-Islamisation” of the Netherlands. Mr Wilders has previously called for the Koran to be banned.

“Voters said ‘we are sick of it. Sick to our stomachs’,” Mr Wilders said, adding that he was now on a mission to end the “asylum tsunami,” referring to the migration issue that came to dominate his campaign.

Communist Party of Britain international secretary Kevan Nelson told the Morning Star: “The victory of the PVV reflects the growing strength of the far right across Europe.

“Anti-migrant sewer politics are finding fertile ground in the mass alienation from the European Union’s neoliberal and pro-war policies.”

Tuur Elzinga, chair of Dutch trade union federation FNV, said: “This election result cannot and should not lead to increased division and opposing groups.” 

Belgian Workers Party president Peter Mertens said: “The boomerang in the Netherlands comes fast but not unexpectedly.”

He said over the last two decades “a million Dutch fell below the poverty line and there are 32,000 registered homeless people. Food banks that had a mere six thousand customers in 2008, have seen that number increase to 120,000 14 years later. 

“Meanwhile, the number of millionaires reaches a record high.”

He said: “If we want to stop the extreme right, then it can only be by halting neoliberal policies.”