When Donald Trump won the presidential election in November, Dutch
nationalist party leader Geert Wilders hailed it as the beginning of an
illiberal reaction that would inspire like-minded movements on the
Atlantic's other shore.
But it doesn’t seem to be happening in his home country.
The national broadcaster NOS averaged the polls for the election in
March and found that support for Wilders’ Freedom Party has fallen since
the end of last year, from a high of 21 percent to 18 percent.
The party, which proposes to take the Netherlands out of the European
Union and stop immigration from non-Western countries, could still
become the single-largest. But the difference with Prime Minister Mark
Rutte’s liberal VVD is now only a few seats.
If this trend continues, Rutte could come out on top, although he is
likely anyway to remain in power at the head of a coalition of parties
in the centre.
So far Freedom Party voters are not flocking to Rutte, who is closest to
Wilders on immigration and security policy but also supports EU
membership and free trade. His liberal party is stable at 16-17 percent
support.
The question now is: where will they go?
"Lets hope they go to a fresh new face like Jesse Klaver from GroenLinks", said a Dutch farmer in Groningen.
EU-Digest
