Never Mind the Hiccups, Geert Wilders Is Inching Closer To Becoming the Next Dutch Prime Minister

Don’t call him the Dutch version of President Trump — not just yet, anyway. One of ascendant politicians, the Eurosceptic Geert Wilders, is poised to clinch the top-dog position at Amsterdam, despite some dreary progressivist suggesting to the contrary. In November Mr. Wilders clinched a win in Holland’s parliamentary elections, with his Party for Freedom, or PVV, scooping up 37 out of 150 seats. Mr. Wilders, the outspoken 60-year-old Eurosceptic with an iconic up-sweep of white hair, has never shied away from questioning Holland’s ultimate place in the EU. He frowns on illegal immigration and, to the dismay of his many left-wing detractors, has made statements to the effect that Islam is a “violent religion” and the burqa “a medieval token of a barbaric time.” He has called for a ban on Islamic education in the Netherlands. There is no denying that his message resonates.If these are roisterous times in Dutch politics, that is partly because Mr. Wilders is soaring in popularity even as his efforts to form a coalition government are facing hurdles. According to a new poll, were new elections to be held now the PVV would win 52 seats in the Dutch house of representatives, the Tweede Kamer — that is 15 more than were gained in November. Even more encouraging for Mr. Wilders, the poll shows that the outgoing prime minister, Mark Rutte, would receive only 13 seats today.Mr. Rutte’s government, with no mandate and without a majority, exists now in a caretaker capacity. The hold-ups along Mr. Wilders’s track to consolidating his position stem from the tsuris he’s been getting from some of his erstwhile coalition partners, such as Peter Omtzigt of the more centrist New Social Contract party. Last week Mr. Omtzigt withdrew from coalition negotiations. In addition to the plummeting support for Mr. Rutte, poll figures suggest that support for Mr. Omtzigt has also dropped — indeed, by nearly half since November. It may be too early for Mr. Wilders to slow down and smell the tulips (well, to admire them, as tulips do not really exude much fragrance) at the Catshuis, but it is in these choppy waters that he is most likely to be able to ford a stream and reach the top political spot in the Netherlands. The reason is that if the Dutch mainstream political parties turn their backs on the formation of a coalition — despite the clear existence of a democratic mandate to do so — then new elections will have to be called. Should that happen, Mr. Wilders would be likely to nab those 52 seats in parliament, and maybe even more. He could do that, and handily, without Mr. Omtzigt’s protestations to stand in the way. All he would need to do is cobble an alliance between the PVV and two center-right parties: the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, or VVD, and the Farmer-Citizen Movement. That would mean 73 seats out of 150. If all that comes together, Mr. Wilders would then need just three more seats to put him across the finish line. The seats are already beckoning him, because they are presently held by the Reformed Political Party, or SGP. The SGP is a conservative Calvinist party. It is ideologically more aligned with Mr. Wilders’ PVV than any other party in the parliament. So right now it is really Mr. Wilders’s move to make. With the numbers indicating that more Dutch are souring on failed liberal policies by the day, the so-called populist politician has both a mandate and momentum behind him. He just needs to pull the right parties behind him ahead of him, and soon. If he manages to do so and takes Mr. Rutte’s place ahead of June’s European parliamentary elections, the earthquake will send shockwaves east to Berlin, west to Paris, and then to the world.

Never Mind the Hiccups, Geert Wilders Is Inching Closer To Becoming the Next Dutch Prime Minister

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