The party of the Netherlands’ outgoing prime minister, Mark Rutte, has ruled out forming a government with the anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders, as coalition talks began following this week’s shock general election result.

However, with 37 seats out of 150, he cannot form a government alone and will have to convince potential coalition partners that he can rule the country after declaring he would not support “Islamic schools, Qur’ans and mosques”.

The Dutch finance minister, Sigrid Kaag, who is standing down as leader of her liberal Democrats 66 (D66) party next summer, citing the “hate, intimidation and threats” she faced, warned voters not to be fooled by Wilders’ pre-election attempt to come across as less extreme.

Ahead of the formation talks, Kaag said that Wilders’ apparent softening of his public position on migrant policies did not take away from 20 years of “accusations, demonising others, discrimination and the exclusion of population groups”.

Yeşilgöz-Zegerius told the Dutch broadcaster NOS before the opening of coalition talks, that after 13 years of Rutte as prime minister and VVD’s loss of seats in the election “another role was appropriate” for the party.

The retreat of VVD from the coalition dialogue puts the spotlight on Timmermans’ GroenLinks-PvdA alliance and Pieter Omtzigt, whose newly founded party, the New Social Contract (NSC), won 20 seats.

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