Dutch center-left parties unite to challenge the right in a historic merger

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Two center-left Dutch political parties agreed Thursday to a formal merger, just months away from a general election where they will seek to turn the political tide in the Netherlands away from right-wing populism.

Members of the Labor Party and Green Left both voted overwhelmingly in favor of the move to form a single new party. The parties have been working together in parliament for years.

Now they will go to the polls as a single entity known by its Dutch name, Groen Links-PvdA. A new party with a new name will follow next year, the parties said after the vote.

“This is a historic moment. This step shows that we, as parties, believe in the power of cooperation, because we can achieve so much more together than apart,” the chair of the Labor Party, Esther-Mirjam Sent, said in a statement.

Green Left chair, Katinka Eikelenboom, added that her party’s members “choose with full conviction for cooperation and renewal. We are building a broad, green and social people’s party that is ready for the future.”

The Oct. 29 election for all 150 seats in the lower house of the Dutch parliament was triggered when right-wing anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders pulled his ministers out of the four-party ruling coalition in a dispute over the pace of reforms to implement tough new measures to rein in migration.

The remaining three parties remain in power in a caretaker capacity under Prime Minister Dick Schoof until a new government is formed.

The Labor Party is led in parliament by former European Commission climate chief Frans Timmermans, a former Dutch foreign minister. The two center-left parties currently trail Wilders’ Party for Freedom in Dutch polling.