Greeny News

Populist leader of Freedom party insists on government role after election breakthrough

The Netherlands' Muslim-baiting maverick Geert Wilders has staked a strong claim to a seat in a new Dutch cabinet after almost tripling his party's parliamentary presence in an election breakthrough.

Wilders, the leader of the Freedom party, increased its seats from nine to 24 in the 150-seat second chamber in The Hague, seven fewer than the winning rightwing liberals of the VVD and six seats behind the Dutch Labour party.

"We want to be part of the new government. Nobody can bypass the PVV [Freedom party] any more," declared the tall populist with the shock of white hair, after pushing the Netherlands' traditionally ruling Christian democrats into a humiliating fourth place in the general election.

Wilders appeared serious about insisting on a government role, promptly dropping campaign insistence on keeping the retirement age at 65 in an attempt to narrow differences with the liberals, who have pledged to raise it to 67 as well as big spending and welfare cuts.

The election, called a year early after the centrist coalition collapsed in February over Afghanistan, revealed a political spectrum fragmented as seldom before and thoroughly polarised, making it difficult to construct a majority.

"A complicated puzzle," said Mark Rutte, the leader of the VVD liberals, who won the election for the first time in the modern era. Rutte will be prime minister and has said he wants a government formed by next month. That looks unlikely and it is not at all clear who he will govern with.

The liberals took 31 seats to Labour's 30, notching up their best ever result but also leaving the winning party with the lowest number of seats. Given the Dutch coalition tradition of including all significant party leaders in the horsetrading that will now ensue, it will be difficult for Rutte to ignore Wilders. Leftwing liberals warned that bringing Wilders into government would damage the Netherlands' reputation internationally.

The result left the parliament evenly split between right and left, probably requiring four parties to coalesce to form a stable majority. One option for Rutte is a rightwing coalition with Wilders, the defeated Christian democrats and a small party of orthodox Christians.

The other is for Rutte to lead a centrist government with Labour, Greens and leftist liberals. That would require Rutte to dilute his pledges of stiff spending cuts and welfare reforms.

The trouble with both coalition options is that for the first time ever, neither would command a majority in the upper house or senate.

Putting Wilders in the cabinet would mean a Dutch minister entering the dock later this year to be tried for inciting racial hatred by likening Islam to Nazism. Last year he was barred from entering Britain by the Home Office.

Excluding him from a coalition would leave the Dutch elite open to charges that it is flouting the rules and conventions of Dutch democracy.

While Wilders calls for a halt to Muslim immigration and disparages the EU, Rutte also campaigned for much tougher curbs on immigration, welfare cuts for immigrants in the country and was highly critical of the EU.