THE DUTCH far-right and anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders has won major gains in local elections in the Netherlands, with preliminary results yesterday indicating he may dominate the political scene in the run-up to the general election in three months.
Yesterday’s poll, 10 days after the centrist coalition government collapsed, was seen as a gauge of the public mood ahead of the national elections on June 9th.
Mr Wilders claimed a massive victory, predicting: “We are going to conquer the entire country. We are going to be the biggest party in the country.
“The leftist elite still believes in multiculturalism, coddling criminals, a European super-state and high taxes,” he told cheering supporters, “but the rest of the Netherlands thinks differently. That silent majority now has a voice.”
With almost 400 local authorities being contested, the focus was on only two areas – The Hague and Almere, in the centre of the country – because of Mr Wilders’s campaign to establish his Freedom Party in local government for the first time.
According to early results, he won in Almere and came second to the Dutch Labour Party in The Hague, the only two places the Freedom Party was running because of a lack of resources and candidates.
Mr Wilders, who likens the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampfand wants Muslim immigrants deported, is bidding to win the general election in June, with the latest opinion polls predicting he might take 27 of the 150 seats in the Netherlands's highly fragmented political scene.
That would make it tough for the Christian Democrats, projected to win one seat fewer, to forge a strong coalition without him. Months of talks between parties, and the resulting policy vacuum, could threaten a fragile economic recovery and cast doubt on the scope of planned budget cuts.
Mr Wilders is expected to visit London today on an invitation from the UK Independence Party for a screening of his incendiary anti-Islamic film, Fitna. Last year the British home office barred him from entering Britain. The ban has since been rescinded.
Yesterday the civic halls in The Hague and Almere were under heavy security. In both places and elsewhere, scores of men and women turned up to vote wearing headscarves, in protest against Mr Wilders’s demand for a tax on Muslim headgear and for the wearing of headscarves to be banned in all public buildings.
Polls predict Mr Wilders could triple his vote in the general election. – ( Guardian service)