Dutch senator quits role after claims

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A party ally of far-right Dutch election winner Geert Wilders on Monday quit his role in the building of a new governing coalition over fraud allegations, throwing the process of creating a new government into turmoil before it had begun.

Gom van Strien, a senator for Wilders’ Party for Freedom, was appointed last week as a “scout” to discuss possible coalitions. He was set to meet Wilders and other party leaders on Monday, but those meetings were canceled.

Van Strien has denied wrongdoing after Dutch media reported that he was embroiled in a fraud case. But on Monday morning, he issued a statement saying that “both the unrest that has arisen about this and the preparation of a response to it” hampered his work seeking a coalition.

Van Strien is an experienced but largely unknown senator for Wilders’ party, known by its Dutch acronym PVV.

He had been tasked with making an inventory of possible coalitions and reporting back to the lower house of the Dutch parliament by early December so that lawmakers could debate the issue on Dec. 6 before appointing another official to begin more concrete talks on forming a coalition.

Van Strien’s resignation highlights one of the key issues Wilders is likely to face over the next weeks as its raft of new lawmakers take their seats in parliament — a lack of political experience in his party. The PVV has always been tightly centered around the figure of Wilders, who sets policy and is one of only a few publicly recognizable faces of the party.