Immigration and EU: Buzzwords in 3 key elections
Dutch elections on Wednesday set the stage for others in France and Germany that come against a background of eurosceptic or anti-immigrant sentiments boosted by Brexit.
The Netherlands: PVV eyes record score
On Wednesday, 12.9 million Dutch voters will be eligible to cast ballots in general elections contested by 28 parties and 1,114 candidates. The vote has boiled down to a tight race between MP Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party (PVV) and Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his Liberals (VVD). Polls indicate that the anti-euro, anti-Islam PVV could score its best result since its creation in 2006. The PVV would not necessarily be part of the next government however, because that will likely be a coalition and most parties have pledged not to govern with the PVV. A firebrand politician, Wilders has vowed to shut mosques, ban the Koran, close the country’s borders and take The Netherlands out of the EU, an institution that it helped found. Leiden University analyst Geerten Waling believes the vote will produce “a very divided parliament” and warned: “It’s going to be much tougher to form a coalition government, much tougher than before.”
France: Duel ahead with Le Pen
France’s presidential race has turned into a rollercoaster, with frontrunning candidates dogged by scandal and the anti-immigrant, anti-euro National Front (FN) seeking to pull off a Donald Trump-style upset. The first round of voting takes place on April 23. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two go into a runoff on May 7. Once the frontrunner, conservative Francois Fillon has had to battle to stay in the race because of the revelations that he had paid his wife Penelope hundreds of thousands of euros from public funds, allegedly for fake jobs.
This has proved good news for Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist, who polls show would reach the second round of the election, where his opponent is forecast to be far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Although polls show Le Pen losing in the second round, all eyes are on her nationalist FN, which is seeking to emulate Trump’s surprise November victory in the US, which defied pollsters and media alike. However, Le Pen has her own legal troubles: she faces prosecution for distributing images of Islamic State atrocities over Twitter as well as separate cases over misusing public funds at the European Parliament and campaign financing.