The nationalist, right-wing Party for Freedom led by MP Geert Wilders on Wednesday was declared the winner in the Netherlands’ Tuesday parliamentary elections. With 98% of the vote, the PVV received 37 parliamentary seats or 23.5% of the House.
It is trailed by the socialist alliance GL/PvdA with 15.5% or 25 seats; the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, VVD, with 15.1% and 24 seats; and the New Social Contract with 12.8% and 20 seats.
The Dutch House of Representatives has 150 seats, which means that Wilders is 39 seats away from forging a government. At this point, the traditional center-left parties would rather face a political crisis followed by new elections which they would hope to win. Wilders must get NSC (New Social Contract) leader Pieter Omtzigto to join with his 20 seats. NSC is a good government Christian Democrat party that shares with the PVV a desire to stop the Netherlands’ integration into the EU, if not pull out of the organization altogether.
There are 11 other parties, with 9 seats or less, and Wilders may be forced to add two or three of them to reach his goal of a 76-seat coalition. The Dutch don’t believe in setting a threshold vote, so JA21 has one seat, and Volt has two. There are 16 parties altogether in parliament, out of 26 that ran.
The morning after the Dutch election, Al Jazeera pressed the panic button: “Anti-Islam, far-right populist Geert Wilders, who has promised to halt all immigration to the Netherlands, is in the clear lead in parliamentary elections.”
The EU Observer explained Wilders’s “shocking” victory: “No doubt his anti-Islam message was boosted by the mass slaughter committed by Hamas…”
After the October 7 massacre, the Netherlands were saturated by mass pro-Hamas rallies that hit their crescendo on November 14, which the Middle East Monitor described: “Amsterdam Airport became the epicenter of a large-scale demonstration, with crowds demanding an immediate ceasefire and advocating for Palestinian freedom. This unparalleled protest in the Netherlands saw participants prominently displaying Palestinian flags and symbolic children’s shrouds, a poignant gesture that underscored the urgent call for peace.”
It appears the Dutch voters had had enough and wanted the violent noise to stop, so they switched to the one man who promised to do just that.
Despite the image of an extremist the leftist and mainstream media have attempted to stick to him, Geert Wilders considers himself a right-wing liberal. His idol is the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and he has said: “My allies are not Le Pen or Haider … We’ll never join up with the fascists and Mussolinis of Italy. I’m very afraid of being linked with the wrong rightist fascist groups.”
He believes that the ruling elite in government only care about their careers and disregard the will and needs of the people. Sounds familiar?
GEERT WILDERS ON ISLAM
As to his position on Islam, he is known to have said, “I don’t hate Muslims, I hate Islam.” He argues that “there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam,'” and that the Koran says Muslims who believe in only part of it are apostates. He has said that Muslims should “tear out half of the Koran if they wished to stay in the Netherlands,” because it contains “terrible things,” and if Muhammad had lived today, he would be hunted down as a terrorist.
He wrote that the Koran is fascist, and should be banned in the Netherlands like Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
Someone had to say it.
In a 2007 speech in parliament, Wilders said: Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe. If we do not stop Islamification now, Eurabia and Netherabia will just be a matter of time. One century ago, there were approximately 50 Muslims in the Netherlands. Today, there are about one million Muslims in this country. Where will it end? We are heading for the end of European and Dutch civilization as we know it.
“Where is our Prime Minister in all this? In reply to my questions in the House, he said, without batting an eyelid, that there is no question of our country being Islamified. Now, this reply constituted a historical error as soon as it was uttered. Very many Dutch citizens, Madam Speaker, experience the presence of Islam around them. And I can report that they have had enough of burkas, headscarves, the ritual slaughter of animals, so-called honor revenge, blaring minarets, female circumcision, hymen restoration operations, abuse of homosexuals, Turkish and Arabic on the buses and trains as well as on town hall leaflets, halal meat at grocery shops and department stores, Sharia exams, the Finance Minister’s Sharia mortgages, and the enormous overrepresentation of Muslims in the area of crime, including Moroccan street terrorists.”
GEERT WILDERS ON ISRAEL
Wilders lived in Israel for two years as a young man and visited the country 40 times in the last 25 years. He has said about Israel: “I have visited many interesting countries in the Middle East – from Syria to Egypt, from Tunisia to Turkey, from Cyprus to Iran – but nowhere did I have the special feeling of solidarity that I always get when I land at Ben Gurion International Airport.”
He also said that “Israel is the West’s first line of defense” against the Islamic hordes. He declared that Israel deserved a special status in the Dutch government because it was fighting for “Jerusalem.”
“If Jerusalem falls into the hands of the Muslims, Athens and Rome will be next. Thus, Jerusalem is the main front protecting the West. It is not a conflict over territory but rather an ideological battle, between the mentality of the liberated West and the ideology of Islamic barbarism. There has been an independent Palestinian state since 1946, and it is the kingdom of Jordan.”
Geert Wilders’ is yet another victory for the right in western Europe, complementing the rising right in eastern Europe and Germany. Sweden’s government today depends on the votes of a “far-right” party, and in Finland, the right is part of the governing coalition. The media continue to try to scare voters with the term “far-right,” but the voters aren’t impressed.
