Almost six months after Dutch anti-Islam populist leader Geert Wilders won the Dutch election, he and three other party leaders have agreed a provisional agreement to form a right-wing government.

A final decision has not been made on the next Dutch prime minister, but it will not be Mr Wilders, who gave up the chance in a bid to secure a deal.

“We have a negotiators’ agreement and we will now put it to our [parliamentary] factions,” the Freedom Party leader told journalists.

If they agree, his party will go into government with the conservative-liberal VVD, the centrist New Social Contract and the Farmer Citizens Movement (BBB).

Mr Wilders’ far-right PVV attracted a quarter of the national vote in last November’s election, after agreeing to put on hold some of his more extreme policies, such as banning the Quran, Islamic schools and mosques.

His victory stunned European politics, following 14 years of broad-based coalitions led by VVD Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who has continued as caretaker prime minister since the election.

But the four-party talks on forming a right-wing coalition collapsed in February, and by March Mr Wilders had abandoned his bid to become prime minister.

The man who brokered that first round of talks, Ronald Plasterk, is now favourite to be offered the job of prime minister. A 67-year-old former Labour party minister, he gave up a flourishing academic career as a molecular biologist to go into politics.