‘A new wind will blow through our country,’ said Geert Wilders, as he declared that his anti-Islam, anti-immigration Party for Freedom (PVV) would enter government for the first time in history.
Late on Wednesday night, Wilders announced that the PVV will join with the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), the New Social Contract party (NSC) and the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) to form a highly unusual right-wing coalition. Although Wilders’s party gained the most votes in the 2023 election, he will not be the next Dutch prime minister.
Still it is a remarkable change of circumstances for the Netherlands’ longest-standing MP, who stood on a manifesto calling for a ban on Islamic schools, mosques and the Quran, as well as a referendum on leaving the EU. Wilders has been a political outcast in the Netherlands for a decade, with the major parties shunning him due to his conviction for insulting Dutch Moroccans and his anti-constitutional views on Islam.
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