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Just a few months ago, Geert Wilders was an anathema to most political parties in the Netherlands.
Wilders, who has been a disruptive and divisive force on the far right for two decades, says he wants to end immigration from Muslim countries, tax headscarves and ban the Koran. He called Moroccan immigrants “scum.” His Liberal Party supports leaving the European Union.
But then Mr. Wilders won a convincing victory in November’s national election. Nearly a quarter of Dutch voters chose the party, and it won 37 of the 150 seats in the lower house of parliament, a large margin by the standards of a fragile party system that relies on consensus-building and coalition-building.
Since then, Mr. Wilders has become an inescapable political force. “He is the greatest,” said Janka Stoker, a professor of leadership and organizational change at the University of Groningen. “They can’t ignore him.”
This predicament makes the Netherlands a test case for Europe as it grapples with what to do with far-right forces that have moved into the mainstream and can no longer be considered marginal.
Italy already has a far-right leader, and the Swedish government relies on a party with neo-Nazi roots. The far right now represents a significant part of the opposition in France and Germany, forcing the question of how long it can be excluded.
In the Netherlands, some mainstream parties have responded by holding their noses and rushing to the negotiating table to find ways to work with Mr. Wilders.
Coalition talks to form a new government have taken weeks or months, but they broke down in February over the amount of the budget, not over Mr. Wilders’ specific words or actions, which further angered the political system. Because of that.
It was an apparently mundane obstacle that belied Mr. Wilders’ deepening normalization and his political acceptance by other parties.
“His normalization happened very quickly,” said Kas Mudde, a Dutch political scientist at the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs.
“Most mainstream media and politicians have treated the coalition negotiations with Wilders as normal,” Mudde said, “and that also seems to be the view of the majority of the Dutch public.” .
Left-wing parties have vowed to still reject Mr. Wilders. But the question of how he will rule with him does not concern them. It’s for other political parties across the political spectrum.
Mr Wilders has been negotiating with the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, the center-right party that has been in power for the past 13 years. Peasant citizen movement, populist pro-peasant party. and the New Social Contract, a new centrist party. Together, these four parties hold 88 seats in the House of Representatives, a comfortable majority.
But it’s clear that Mr. Wilders’ negotiating partners are uncomfortable, even if they haven’t expressed it publicly.
With concerns still swirling around Mr. Wilders, the four parties around the table signed an unusual document pledging support for the Dutch constitution, long taken for granted, early in the talks. Measures were taken.
The pledge, as well as the need to mobilize support from multiple political parties, is expected to limit Mr. Wilders’ ability to significantly change pillars of the Dutch government or push through unconstitutional laws. has been done.
Signing the document also helps Mr. Wilders maintain some political distance from the most extreme positions as he attempts to find common ground with other political parties and moderates his own views. It gave the impression that.
But Mr. Wilders’ party is built entirely around him and has a unique structure that gives him sole authority. That platform still includes a number of unconstitutional proposals, including a ban on mosques and Islamic schools.
Mr Wilders said he had not changed his opinion and refused to retract the comments that bothered him. These include asking his supporters in 2014 whether they wanted more or fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands, which led to chants of “fewer!” . few! “From the crowd.
“Our vision and critique of Islam has not changed,” Wilders told lawmakers last month.
Given his failure to repudiate his most extreme statements, and the fact that he and his party are one and the same, the country and political system remain with the lingering problems that Wilders is addressing.
“The question is how much one can believe someone who hasn’t seriously considered constitutional law for about 20 years,” said Leonie de Jonge, an assistant professor of European politics and society at the University of Groningen. “If you look at his Twitter feed, you’ll see that he’s not that extreme either.”
At the same time, Mr. Wilders is a known entity, one of many contradictions surrounding him. He is one of the most familiar faces in Dutch politics and is known for his outspokenness. He has served in the House of Representatives since 1998, making him the longest-serving member of Congress.
For most of that time, he was a member of the opposition. But he said his biggest success in his last election was by linking his long-standing antipathy toward immigrants to other issues that Dutch people are most concerned about, such as the lack of affordable housing. did it.
In an attempt to find a way out of the impasse over forming a government, and to avoid everyone’s least preferred option of new elections, politicians have been discussing unorthodox arrangements with little or no precedent. .
Some have floated the idea of forming a coalition of smaller parties or a cabinet that includes ministers from other smaller parties. It could also include political outsiders and respected former politicians who could serve to create a greater buffer between the cabinet and parliament. But both political analysts and politicians themselves are unclear about what that actually means.
But even that option might only reduce Wilders’ role. They can prevent him from becoming prime minister, but in almost every conceivable situation his party would have to be part of the government. There is almost no getting around it.
During a series of coalition talks that collapsed last month, Mr Wilders used the opportunity to be in the political spotlight to put on his best face and present himself as professional and constructive.
“I acted as the leader of the largest political party,” Wilders said in a recent House of Commons debate.
Even traditionally hostile sections of the Dutch news media have described him as trustworthy and professional, including the left-wing newspaper De Volkskrant, which has been highly critical of him over the years.
But Mr Wilders remained combative on social media, his favorite platform for venting his vitriol. Dr Stoker said Mr Wilders’ actions called into question his ability to be a unifying force and showed a side of Mr Wilders that had not been seen or tested during his time in opposition.
For now, the four negotiating parties need to resume talks and reach an agreement on what kind of coalition they can support before a ruling party agreement can be finalized.
The chances of a traditional coalition government with Wilders in charge may be diminished in a new round of negotiations, but the option remains.
Wilders himself has said he wants to lead the country. When asked in a recent parliamentary debate whether he still had aspirations to become prime minister, his answer was clear. “I can’t wait.”
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