“If Dutch politicians and voters thought that Geert Wilders had faded into near-obscurity since the last election, they were dead wrong.
For 15 years, the far-right firebrand was everywhere, spreading his anti-Islam, anti-immigration, anti-EU message and doing increasingly well at the ballot box. Then it all went into reverse, with a new figurehead emerging on the far right and parts of Wilders’ message being absorbed by the mainstream.
Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) dropped from nine seats to five in the national parliament’s upper house at elections in 2019. At European Parliament elections the same year, the party barely reached the electoral threshold — gaining a single MEP only after the U.K. left the EU and the seats were redistributed.”
