Dutch elections

Hostility to immigrants dominates major parties in Dutch election

According to recent polls, the two governing parties taking part in the Dutch parliamentary elections on March 15 will be punished for their drastic austerity policies.

Poised to benefit the most from the losses of the free-market, liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), whose leader is Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and its coalition partner, the social-democratic Labour Party (PvdA), is Geert Wilders’ anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim Party for Freedom (PVV). Current polls place the latter in the lead, just ahead of the VVD.

The elections in the Netherlands are significant. This country of approximately 17 million people has often been the harbinger of trends affecting Europe as a whole. In May there will be presidential elections in France, and parliamentary elections will take place in Germany this September. Here, too, the far right hopes to profit from the politics of the established parties.