Netherlands: How the extremist Wilders was sidelined
The far-right firebrand who won the Dutch elections will not be the next prime minister, said Eline Schaart in Politico.eu (Belgium). Geert Wilders, a populist known as much for his peroxide-blonde bouffant as for his anti-immigrant rants, seemed poised to take power after his Party for Freedom (PVV) won a “shock” plurality in November’s parliamentary elections. But mainstream Dutch parties kept stymieing his efforts to form a governing coalition. Negotiators finally concluded that “the biggest obstacle to a coalition deal was the prospect of Wilders himself becoming prime minister.” A lawmaker since 1998, Wilders is the Dutch parliament’s longest-serving member, but his bigoted screeds—he has called Islam “totalitarian” and Moroccans “scum”—make him a “pariah.” Now he’s bowed out of the leadership contest, “gambling that by giving up personal ambition, he will help ensure his hard-line right-wing political vision becomes a reality.” It’s still a victory, of sorts: A deal is in the offing for the PVV, long considered radioactive for its extremism, to helm an alliance of four right and center-right parties. Wilders’ once-fringe party has “entered the mainstream.”
Europe can “breathe a sigh of relief,” said Thomas Kirchner in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany). If Wilders had become Dutch prime minister, he’d have a seat on the European Council in Brussels, where he could spew his Islamophobia and his toxic nationalism on a wider stage. This is a man who campaigned to withdraw the Netherlands from the European Union in a socalled Nexit, reject all new asylum claims, and outlaw mosques and the Quran—basically, “he ran against everything European cooperation stands for.” Fortunately, most of Wilders’ craziest threats, “repeated in stormy rapture on the campaign trail,” are now dissolving, said Jarl van der Ploeg in De Volkskrant (Netherlands), as the few moderates in his party are being forced to horse-trade to secure their spot in the coalition. “Quran ban? You can put it on ice!” Aid to Ukraine? Still flowing. “Nexit? No no no.” Still, one pledge is too important to abandon: a draconian crackdown on migrants. When the PVV won last year, some Dutch pundits tried to spin the result not as evidence that the Dutch are racist but as a “protest vote” against high gas prices. Yet “Wilders knows his own voters well,” and they want what he wants: a country with “far fewer foreigners.”
In fact, stepping aside is no great sacrifice for Wilders, said Ludger Kazmierczak in Tagesschau (Germany). He’s not ceding power to a rival, because the coalition agreement bars all four party leaders from the premiership: It will be more like a government of technocrats. Meanwhile, he can continue doing “exactly what he’s preferred to do” since founding the PVV in 2006—agitating for his radical agenda “without having to take responsibility” for governing. But he may yet rule over us someday, said Stevo Akkerman in Trouw (Netherlands). The next prime minister will be a figurehead who has to “reckon with Wilders’ ego” and the inter-party bickering of four unlikely bedfellows. That government is almost certain to implode, giving Wilders another shot at leadership. He’s “not something you can just shake off.”