Spijkenisse, Netherlands // Dutch anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders launched his election campaign on Saturday with a stinging attack on the country’s Moroccan population, calling some “scum” and saying he wanted to make the Netherlands “ours again”.
The far-right politician has been leading opinion polls ahead of crunch elections on March 15, seen as a litmus test of populism in European politics after Brexit and Donald Trump’s victory in the United States.
“The Moroccan scum in Holland ... once again not all are scum... but there is a lot of Moroccan scum in Holland who make the streets unsafe, mostly young people... and that should change,” Mr Wilders said in the blue-collar town of Spijkenisse, not far from Europe’s largest port of Rotterdam.
He called on voters to back his anti-Islam, anti-European Union Freedom Party if they wanted to “regain” their country.
Asked who his voters were, Mr Wilders said “every Dutchman with common sense ... and fortunately we have a lot of people with common sense.”
“Dutch people who want their country back will vote for us irrespective of their education or background,” he said.
The MP, who has vowed to ban the Quran and close mosques should he win power, was convicted of discrimination in December over previous comments he made about Moroccans living in the Netherlands.
But his words asking party faithful in 2014 if they wanted “fewer Moroccans” in the country have found some traction among traditional supporters worried about immigration and extremist attacks across Europe in recent years.
The latest combined opinion polls give Mr Wilders and his PVV party 24 to 28 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament, two to four seats ahead of Liberal prime minister Mark Rutte’s ruling VVD party.
Support for Mr Wilders – who posed for selfies and shook hands with citizens on the Spijkenisse’s medieval square – varied widely and after he left several angry arguments between backers and opponents broke out.
“We are all voting for Wilders this year,” said one supporter Danny, 59, who declined to give his surname.
“It’s not safe in the streets anymore especially in the big cities,” he said as he watched Mr Wilders walk around under heavy police protection.
Mr Wilders’s views have seen him receive death threats including from ISIL and Al Qaeda. He is guarded at all times and has been called the “best protected man in the Netherlands”.
Pieter Kamerling, 40, a PVV organiser in the area, said: “We are going to free this country. Brussels has the key to our home and we’re going to take it back. Geert will ensure that we do that.”
Martin Bosma, a PVV parliamentarian regarded as Mr Wilders’s right-hand man, admitted it would be “difficult” for the party to find coalition partners should they win the elections.
Most major Dutch political parties, including Mr Rutte’s VVD, refuse to work with the PVV after Mr Wilders’ Moroccan comments and his conviction.
“Geert Wilders is polarising people,” said Theo de Boer, 50, as he walked away from the market clutching a bunch of flowers.
“He discriminates and I totally disagree with him. We have a constitution and freedom of religion is one of its most important pillars,” De Boer said.
Some locals were conflicted about Wilders.
“Geert dares to say what a whole bunch of Dutch people think and that’s a good thing,” said fishmonger Marianne Sleurink, 60.
“But he causes a whole lot of hatred and has no real solution,” she said.
* Agence France-Presse
