The 60-year-old formed his Freedom party in 2006 but has,until now,remained an outsider,doing little to curb his own crude attacks from describing Islam as “an ideology of a retarded culture” to calling Moroccans “scum” during his year in opposition.
In his victory speech,Wilders vowed to tackle what he called the “asylum tsunami” hitting the Netherlands.
His hostility to Islam was shaped by travels in the Middle East as a young man and time on a kibbutz in Israel. He has said Muslim societies there were intolerant and inconsistent with Dutch values. His views – including linking Muslim immigration with terrorism and calling for a ban on mosques and the Koran – are so provocative at home that he and his wife have lived in a safe house under tight police protection since 2004.
In a move his critics branded opportunistic,to ease concerns of voters this time around he signalled that in office he would avoid “unconstitutional measures” that went against the country’s historic commitment to religious freedom,such as banning Islamic headscarves in public buildings or closing Islamic schools. It earned him the moniker “Milders” in the press.
Early estimates are that 12 per cent of Wilders voters were people who normally abstain and around 15 per cent switched from the VVD,the centre-right but socially liberal party of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte. He also appealed to a younger generation,winning the most votes of any party in the 18-35 age group.
His win indicates many Dutch — and potentially other Europeans — are angry about the surge in immigration and the economic difficulties they blame on an elite that has overseen a housing shortage,a reduction in public services,high inflation and falling living standards.
With Orban’s long-standing reign in Hungary,far-right Giorgia Meloni in charge in Italy,and populist Robert Fico’s pro-Putin party’s win in Slovakia last month,there is now a solid bloc of Eurosceptic leaning parties in power in Europe.
Far-right parties are steadily gaining momentum in France,Germany and Spain,flagging potentially more unrest next year and beyond.
Mass migration – particularly from Africa and parts of the Middle East – was a major issue during the election campaign,especially since Rutte’s government fell over a bill to reduce asylum seekers. Even though Wilders’ tone was described as “milder”,his rhetoric and priorities on migration and anti-EU remain unchanged.
Johannes Hillje,a German electoral strategist and author ofPropaganda 4.0:how far-right populists do politics, said the decision of the other major parties to mimic Wilders’ tough stance on immigration and roll back promises to never enter into coalition with him was behind the result,in a somewhat normalisation of the far right.
“Everything they did made Wilders stronger and contributed to his electability,” Hillje said.
He said Wilders and Italy’s Meloni had both followed the “de-demonisation” strategy of French far-right figurehead Le Pen,moderating their rhetoric when it looks electorally useful.
“It’s not that they’ve changed their positions,but they express them a little differently to be more appealing,to overcome the emotional barrier to the middle ground,” he said.
Elizabeth Kuiper,an associate director at the European Policy Centre,said the result was part of a “worrying trend of more fragmentation and polarisation” within Europe.
It underscores the potency of immigration as a campaign issue when Europe is struggling to cope withhuge numbers of irregular migrants and asylum seekers,on top of refugees from Ukraine. And it raises difficult questions for mainstream parties particularly on the centre-right who fear being outflanked by populists.
“Clearly the mobilisation of voters expressing political discontent needs to be addressed at the EU level in the years to come,” she said. “The EU would need to show its ability to solve social problems and implement a fair and just climate transition.”
Armida van Rij,a research fellow at Chatham House’s International Security Program,said regardless of whether Wilders becomes the prime minister,his Freedom Party’s majority in parliament would harm European unity on Ukraine.
Wilders has previously held pro-Kremlin leanings,meeting officials on a trip to Moscow in 2018 at a time when relations with Russia were frozen after Dutch nationals died when their Malaysian Airlines jet was shot down by Russian separatists in Ukraine in 2014.. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion last year,Wilders has backed Kyiv,but in one of the last debates before the election,he said he would not support sending Ukraine more weapons.
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“If – and it remains an ‘if’ at this stage – the Netherlands will again have a right-wing bloc as a government,it is bad news for Europe and Dutch engagement abroad generally,” van Rij said.
“It will become increasingly difficult to negotiate support packages for Ukraine and sanctions on Russia among member states,and pass these through the European Parliament. The longer-term prospect of Ukrainian accession to the EU may also be at risk.”
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