The anti-Islamic right won in the Netherlands: Who is Geert Wilders?

None of the most reliable polls had remotely predicted such a scenario, except for the poll taken on the eve of the vote, just before the vote. The Freedom Party (PVV) won the general elections in the Netherlands. Geert Wilders, the leader of this right-wing, Eurosceptic and anti-Islam formation, should be able to count on 37 of the 150 MPs that make up the Dutch Parliament, more than double what he has so far. However, despite his success, his path to the prime minister’s seat is full of obstacles. And this may cause him to take a step back.

The most famous “bleach blonde” of the Netherlands.

What is certain is that for the next few years Dutch politics will not fail to deal with Wilders. In reality, this is not a sudden phenomenon: the long-time politician, “the most famous bleach blonde since Marilyn Monroe”, described by her habit of dyeing her hair, has been in the Dutch Parliament since 1998. His career began in the ranks of (now former) Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s liberal party, the VVD. He left this party in 2006 by founding the PVV, which brought together liberal souls who tended to look to the right. But we are not closing the door completely on Rutte, so much so that we guarantee him foreign support when he gets his first job as prime minister in 2010. However, in 2012, Wilders attempted to attack his former party colleague, withdrew his support and led the country to early elections. Things will go badly for him: his PVV will lose support and seats, while Rutte will reaffirm the position of prime minister, which he has held to this day.

However, the fates of the two seem to intersect again: Rutte’s exit from the political arena, who resigned at a time when farmers were protesting against environmental policies and the majority disagreed on immigration, now coincides with the biggest success of his career. politics. And that could take him to where his arch-rival has reigned virtually unchallenged for more than a decade. According to Dutch political scientist André Krouwel, some of the credit goes to Dilan Yeşilgöz, who took the reins of the VVD from Rutte.

Yeşilgöz’s mistake

Yeşilgöz, who was born to a Kurdish family in Turkey and took refuge in the Netherlands at the age of 8 thanks to family reunification, was seen as the big favorite in the government race the day before. Polls gave him a slight advantage over former EU commissioner Frans Timmermans’ coalition of centre-left and ecologists. deus ex machina from the European Green Deal) and from Pieter Omtzigt’s newly formed Christian Democratic party, the NSC. According to polls, Wilders was watching the trio from a distance until a few days ago. The predictions supported the new direction given to the party by Yeşilgöz, who became the leader of the right wing of the liberals thanks to his campaigns against illegal immigration. Although more moderate than that of Wilders (who has been convicted of inciting hatred in the past), his tone appeared to win over voters on the right, gaining support from the PVV.

However, according to Krouwel, Greeneye made a serious tactical mistake: he now bypassed Wilders and recruited him for possible support for his future government. “A few days ago, Geert Wilders still had 17 seats, and then the VVD suddenly, very strangely, opened the door to cooperation with them. The voters thought: ‘If the VVD no longer excludes the PVV, we will still vote for Wilders.’ And twenty seats in one week came,” said the political scientist. On the eve of this, Yeşilgöz was indeed open to a government alliance with Wilders, but only if he became prime minister. Now he may have to take a significant step back.

Tough government deals

The numbers say a administration without Wilders is possible but complicated: The center-left coalition should have 25 seats; to this should be added the seats of the VVD (24), NSC (20) and the left-liberal D66 (9). . Their alliance would not be new, given that Rutte has been in power with these parties for years. Together they will have 78 seats, just over the majority in the House of Representatives.

But if Yeşilgöz agrees to cooperate with Wilders, the eventual majority may rely on smaller right-wing parties, including the newly formed farmers’ party BBB. But all together they would reach 72 seats, which was not enough to govern. The turning point in this possibility may be Omtzigt’s Christian Democratic party, NSC; This party categorically refuses to join a bandwagon that pursues policies that are against freedom of religion (i.e., anti-Islamic).

Wilders knew this and was wearing the clothes of a right-wing but moderate politician after the first ballot box: “I’m calling out to the other parties. We were in the election campaign until now. Now the campaign is over and done with. We will have to look for common ground and work together,” he told the crowd of supporters. Of course, there is common ground. The ground cannot be Euroscepticism, which seems to have been abandoned for some time by the right-wing leader (an ally of Matteo Salvini’s League and Marine Le Pen in the EU Parliament). Greeneye and Omtzigt are a project to stop the “asylum tsunami” as Wilders describes it, i.e. They can unite on tougher policies against immigration and asylum policies.

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