The farmers’ party BBB is set to be the big winner in provincial elections in the Netherlands, dealing a blow to the government’s plans to reduce nitrogen pollution by buying out cattle farmers.

Less than four years after it was founded, Caroline van der Plas’s party is set to be the largest group in the senate, with 15 of the 75 seats, based on a 19% share of the vote. Provincial assembly members will choose the new senate in May.

‘The Netherlands has clearly shown that we’ve had enough of these policies,’ Van der Plas told broadcaster NOS. ‘It’s not just about nitrogen, it’s about citizens who are unseen and unheard, who aren’t being taken seriously, whose problems aren’t being tackled.

‘The train in The Hague keeps rolling on. We’re going to stop the train.’

Two left-wing parties, Labour (PvdA) and GroenLinks, who are forming an alliance in the senate, are also on course to win 15 seats, according to an exit poll for national broadcaster NOS.

That would allow the coalition parties, who are projected to win 24 seats between them, to bypass the BBB, as the GroenLinks and PvdA alliance would supply enough votes for a majority.

The two parties have already said they will drive a hard bargain on climate change, with GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver warning last week that he would block the cabinet’s green energy plans unless it accelerated the transition to renewable energy and the abolished fossil fuel subsidies.

‘Right or left?’

Klaver told a campaign rally for both parties: ‘Our ambition was to be the biggest faction in the upper house, the first left-wing party in 20 years, and that is still possible. Will the cabinet go right or left?’

It would also put the cabinet on a collision course with the provincial governments, where the BBB will seek to build coalitions. The cabinet will need the consent of provincial governments to carry out its plan to buy out high polluting farms and businesses that border nature conservation zones.

Christianne van der Wal, the minister in charge of nitrogen reduction policy, warned there could be no turning back on the buyout plan, which is a response to a judgment by the Council of State based on a binding European conservation agreement.

‘It’s a very complicated portfolio that will have a very big impact on a huge number of people, but at the same time we have no choice,’ she said.

Exit polls in three provinces projected that the BBB would be the largest party in Noord-Holland, Noord-Brabant and Overijssel. In the eastern province of Overijssel it scored 31% of the vote in the poll, which would be enough to win 17 of the 47 seats seats. No other party was projected to win more than four.

Coalition losses

All four coalition partners are projected to lose seats in the senate. Rutte’s right-wing liberal VVD is set to remain the largest of the coalition quartet, with 10 senators, while D66 and the ChristenUnie lose one each.

Rutte acknowledged that the poll did not project ‘the gains we wanted’. He congratulated van der Plas on her party’s success, but added: ‘We are prepared to take responsibility in the provinces.’

The major losers are the Christian Democrats (CDA), whose traditionally loyal rural voters appear to have defected en masse to the BBB. The poll predicts it would lose four of its nine seats in the upper house.

Hoekstra: ‘Bitter pill’

CDA leader Wopke Hoekstra described the projected outcome as an ‘extraordinarily bitter pill’ and ‘a landslide that we haven’t seen for years.’

D66 leader Sigrid Kaag said the BBB had ‘managed to pull off a phenomenal result’ and said the election had been a ‘festival of democracy’. Turnout was the highest for provincial elections in 30 years at 61%, with several polling stations reportedly running out of ballot papers.

Kaag said she was satisfied with her party’s performance, even though D66 is projected to lose one of its seven senate seats. ‘We stand for our ideals and we are committed to achieving our progressive agenda,’ she said.

Two new parties are predicted to enter the senate: the hard-right JA21, who are set to win three seats, and pro-European group Volt, who could pick up two. The animal rights party PvdD also gained votes and could end up with five senators.

Forum slump

Geert Wilders’s anti-Islam PVV party, the Socialists (SP) and the ultra-orthodox SGP are all expected to make small losses.

The big winners of the last provincial elections, Thierry Baudet’s right-wing nationalist Forum voor Democratie, were the biggest losers this time. Their share of the national vote slumped from 14% to 3% after four years dominated by infighting, with 11 of their 12 senators defecting from the party.

This time Forum is projected to take just two senate seats. Baudet told cheering supporters his party was focused on a ‘long-term project’.