The Hague, March 04: Far-rightist, anti-Islam Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders made strong gains in local polls, boosting his chances to win the June parliamentary elections.
“What is possible in The Hague and Almere is possible all over the country,” Wilders, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party (PVV), told jubilant supports in Almere, reported.
“It’s a springboard for our victory.”
The PVV, which contested only two of the 394 municipalities, came first in Almere, a city near the capital Amsterdam, winning 21 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results.
It also won eight seats in The Hague, coming second to the Labour Party (PvdA) with 10 seats.
The ballot saw support for the country’s biggest two parties, the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) and PvdA dropping.
The CDA of outgoing Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende had dropped about two percentage points from 16.83 percent in 2006.
The PvdA, the strongest party in the last round of municipal polls in 2006 with 23.45 percent of the vote, now stood at about 16 percent.
The coalition government of the CDA and PvdA collapsed last month over a dispute on extending military presence in war-torn Afghanistan.
Balkenende now leads an interim government until national elections, brought forward to June 9.
Warning Message
The local poll gains set the stage for the far-right MP, who is on trial for anti-Muslim rants, to win the June parliamentary elections.
“You can see there’s a lot of discontent in the electorate,” Andre Krouwel, professor of political science at Vrije University in Amsterdam, told Reuters.
“Clearly Wilders is going to use these results as a stepping stone for national elections.”
Opinion polls predict his PVV, which campaigns against Muslim immigration as its main platform, would win 27 seats in the 150-member parliament.
“We are going to conquer the entire country,” said a victorious Wilders.
“We are going to be the biggest party in the country after the June 9 vote.”
Wilders said last week that a ban on hijab for city council workers and in all institutions and clubs which get local authority money will be a condition for joining local authority executives in Almere and the Hague.
He added that such a ban will not apply to other religious items such as Christian crosses and Jewish skull caps, describing them as symbols of the Dutch culture.
Wilders is currently facing charges of discrimination and inciting hatred against non western immigrants and Muslims.
He is notorious for his attacks against Islam and Muslims, who make up one million of the Netherlands’s 16 million population.
He released in March 2008 a 15-minute documentary, entitled “Fitna” or sedition in Arabic, accusing the Qur’an of inciting violence.
The documentary drew international condemnation and was blasted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as “offensively anti-Islamic”.
Wilders had earlier called for banning the Muslim holy book and described it as “fascist.”
-Agencies