NEW RIGHT-WING PARTIES IN NEXT DUTCH POLLS

Although this year’s Dutch parliamentary elections are still six weeks away, the battle to win voters has already begun. For those people who want to vote for a right-wing party on 22 November, the choice will be greater than ever since three new parties have been established in the past three weeks. All three regard themselves as the rightful heirs to the legacy of Pim Fortuyn, who was murdered in 2002.

The emergence of right-wing parties is not a sign of great popularity or a large following among the electorate, but more a reflection of internal disagreement. The leaders of these parties have tried to cooperate, but their efforts failed in the face of insurmountable disagreements, not least about the question of who should be the leader.
 
The new parties all owe a great deal to the political ideas of charismatic politician Pim Fortuyn, who never had a chance to put his ideas into practice because he was murdered by a deranged environmental activist in 2002, just prior to the elections. After his death, Fortuyn became an almost mythical figure in the minds of many people, and all the new parties make much of their claim to be intent on changing the Netherlands "in the spirit of Pim".
 
Almost by definition, a political programme "in the spirit of Pim" must be critical of the Dutch status quo and contain a number of basic ingredients. All three newly-established parties think there is too much bureaucracy in the Netherlands, hence large numbers of civil servants should be sacked. Also, they complain about there being too much crime and too few police. In their eyes, the Dutch judiciary is far too mild and judges should be handing down heavier sentences. There is too little respect and care for the elderly, and healthcare needs to be improved.

Finally, of course, there’s a prominent place in their election programmes for their critical views on immigration and the integration of immigrants into Dutch society. The basic theme is that Muslims constitute a danger to Dutch society and the wearing of the headscarf should be prohibited. One of the new political hopefuls - the Party for the Netherlands - is particularly opposed to the existence of Islamic schools, as party leader Hildebrand Nawijn explains:

"We are not an Islamic country […] we have a Judaeo-Christian-humanist tradition, so I think it's better that we bring that forward. And what's very important is Islamic education. To organise that in special schools, that's what we have problems with."
 
The Party for Freedom headed by populist conservative parliamentarian Geert Wilders expects to attract a large number of voters with the promise of tax cuts. But its leader has also plans to close the borders of the Netherlands to certain immigrants: “One of the reasons that I propose a five-year ban on immigration from non-Western countries, like Turkey and Morocco, is that we have so many problems with all the Muslims that are already in Holland. If you want to help those people, if you want to invest in more education for them, if you want to invest in more jobs for them, if you want to beat unjust discrimination, then you can only have an effective policy if you stop the influx of tens of thousands more of them coming to the Netherlands every day.”
 
Up until a few years ago, the conservative VVD was the only major right-wing party in the Netherlands. In the coming elections, the party stands to lose many votes to the newly-established splinter parties to its right. It took the VVD a great deal of effort to convince its greatest electoral asset, current Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk, to remain within its ranks. She seriously considered joining one of the new parties, but now the VVD hopes that she will help prevent other parties from stealing away its electoral support.
 
Listening to - or reading - all the criticism expressed by these new parties it would easy to believe that there’s little right with the Netherlands in 2006. Back in 2002, Pim Fortuyn had a similar message which, despite his death, helped his party cause a major shake-up in Dutch politics when it won 27 of the 150 seats in parliament.

In the case of the new right-wing parties it remains to be seen whether and in how far they will do well in November’s elections. Many of the issues on Pim Fortuyn’s programme have since been adopted by the traditional parties on both the right and the left and, with the economy again picking up, it’s felt this may prevent many voters from casting a ‘protest vote’ as was the case in the 2002 election. more features

September 8 , 2006