THE HAGUE: Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders Friday posted two unsubstantiated claims of irregularities in elections in the Netherlands, minutes after rival Rob Jetten claimed a narrow victory for his D66 centrists.
Local agency ANP, which tallies and publishes the ballots, earlier Friday had said Wilders and his PVV Freedom Party could not catch the D66 with only a handful of votes still to count.
Wilders posted on X a screen grab of a message claiming without evidence that more than 100 votes had not been counted in the city of Maastricht and suggested this could have happened elsewhere.
Another screen grab showed a message claiming, also without evidence, that 15 ballot boxes of votes had disappeared in Zaanstad, near Amsterdam.
“It’s raining messages like this from all around the country,” said Wilders.
“I don’t know if it is true or not, but it would be good for it to be investigated.”
Wilders then posted a second message with a screen grab suggesting the boss of the company selected to ensure the security of election software was linked to the D66.
“Is this report true?” asked Wilders.
According to the website of Electoral Council, that company (HackDefense) did test the software for elections in 2021 and 2023 – the year Wilders topped the vote.
But the Electoral Council selected a different company, Fox-IT, for European elections in 2024 and the national vote held on Wednesday.
“The Electoral Council commissions a security review of the Election Support Software (OSV2020) for every regular election,” it said on its website.
“The software used to determine the results for the House of Representatives elections (on Wednesday) is the same version of the software used for the 2024 European Parliament elections.
“This was reviewed by Fox-IT in 2024. Fox-IT found no major vulnerabilities in the software,” the Electoral Council said.
With just one constituency and overseas postal votes still to be counted, Jetten holds a razor-thin lead of 14,081 votes over Wilders and his PVV Freedom Party.
The Electoral Council is scheduled to deliver the final official results next Friday.
© New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd
