Wilders has also called the concept of multiculturalism a failure in the Netherlands. He is advocating a complete five-year ban on immigration. He says Turkey does not belong in the European Union, which has agreed to open negotiations toward the country's membership.
Those positions were once politically taboo in the Netherlands. But that ended in 2002, when Pim Fortuyn, the flamboyant populist, entered the political scene and upended the Dutch tradition of consensus politics with an anti-immigrant stance summed up with his phrase "Holland is full."
Dutch politician Geert Wilders watches the latest Internet video clip calling for his beheading. He has adopted an aggressively anti-Islamic position, saying that Islam and democracy are "not compatible, not now and not in a million years."
(Keith B. Richburg -- The Washington Post)
|
|
Fortuyn was assassinated by an animal rights activist in May 2002 while campaigning in national elections, but his impact remains as more and more politicians angle for political mileage by directly confronting topics long considered unmentionable here.
Wilders, who sports dyed blond hair, is positioning himself to inherit Fortuyn's constituency. After splitting with his old political party, the VVD Liberals, over Turkey and immigration, Wilders announced that he was forming his own party, the Wilders Group, to run in the next elections, due by 2007.
One public opinion poll, taken just after the van Gogh killing, found that Wilders's party might have won 26 seats out of 150 in parliament if the election were held then. Later polls have been mixed, with some showing him slipping.
So far, Wilders's main problem is translating his personal popularity into a political party and recruiting candidates. Aligning with Wilders would almost certainly mean being added to the "death list" and having to live under the same 24-hour guard.
Another problem, Wilders concedes, is keeping his profile high for the next two years, before another election is held. He recently returned from a trip to the United States to try to gain attention, meeting with groups such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute and with Republican members of Congress.
Other Dutch politicians say Wilders will have to broaden his agenda beyond Islam and integration if the public is to consider him as a future prime minister.
Still, veteran political operatives said Wilders could have an impact on politics in the same way that Fortuyn did, reflecting continued public disenchantment with the established parties. "He is tapping into this general dissatisfaction people still have with the status quo," said van de Linde, the political consultant. "It's the Ross Perot factor."
