[Special elections in Holland / 4] Is the immigration losing electoral appeal?

June 2009: in the Netherlands the European elections marked a political triumph for Geert Wilders. His Party for Freedom (PVV), founded just five years earlier on a fiercely anti-immigration platform, became the second party of the country, winning over a 17% of Dutch electorate. Over the following months, Mr. Wilders’ crusade against Islam placed him at the top of the opinion polls, transforming the outgoing politician in a celebrity inside and outside the borders of his country. At the local elections of last March, in the only two cities where it fielded candidates, The Hague and Almere, the PVV ranked first and second. Such results shed alarm among the historical formations of the political spectrum, above all the Christian Democrats and the Labours, in difficulty after their government coalition collapsed because of divergences on the renewal of the military mission in Afghanistan. Nonetheless the Dutch general elections, due this Wednesday 9 June, seem fated to downsize the political ambitions of Mr. Wilders.

” In the wake of the default risk in Greece, the economy and the global financial crisis have in fact become more and more central in this electoral campaign”, explains Wim van de Camp, a Dutch Member of the European Parliament. The Netherlands remains the EU most virtuous country when it comes to the management of public finances. But the possibility, though still remote, that the solid economic prosperity of the country will be sometime in danger, suddenly ousted the anxiety of security on top of Dutch electorate’s thoughts. Wilders has been then forced to play the last part of the election campaign on a ground, the economy, on which the PVV has little or nothing to offer. With regard to immigration, “it is certainly a sensitive issue but less than in the recent past”, says Mr. Van de Camp.

The electoral game in recent weeks has been conducted by the VVD (Liberal Party), proponent of a reduction in public expenditure, and by the Labour Party (PvdA), which defend the integrity of the generous Dutch welfare state. Latest polls give the first party a lead in the voting (with 37 parliamentary seats out of 150), closely followed by the PvdA (with 31 benches). The Christian Democrats (CDA) of the Prime Minister Balkende, seem to undergo the typical unpopularity of those who stay too long in power. Yet the erosion of the PVV, slipped to fourth place in the polls with just over 10%, derives also from the excessive eccentricity of Mr. Wilders: he has prevented the surfacing of other personalities within is party, irked the national press, led a feeble campaign on the ground. Anyway, “repeating, always, that all the country’s problems stem from immigration at the end might not be credible”.

The VVD has meanwhile started to harden its position on immigration. And in the opposite camp, the Labour party has lined up Job Cohen, who made his name as mayor of Amsterdam facing the social tensions emerged in the aftermath of the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. For Mr. Wilders the way to political glory seems to be narrowing although, with half of the electorate still undecided a few hours before the opening of the polls, the odds may still be denied by the facts. “I would be careful before proclaiming Mr. Wilders defeat”, confirms Van De Camp .

See also:

[Special elections in Holland / 1] Where has Dutch tolerance gone?

[Special elections in Holland / 2] The troubles of the Third Millenium

[Special elections in Holland / 3] Extremism does not always pay back

[The results of the elections in Holland]
The anti-immigration line does not make it big