Geert Wilders

Politician Geert Wilders for a Europe of proud sovereign nations allied in the struggle against mass immigration, over-foreignization and Islamization as well as against EU central dominance.

Geert Wilders (b. 6 September 1963) is a Dutch politician and the founder and as of 22 February 2006 leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom. He has been leader of the party in the Dutch House of Representatives since 23 November 2006. Wilders is best known for his anti-Islamization views which have made him a controversial, but loved figure in the Netherlands and abroad. Since 2004 and the assassination of Theo van Gogh he has permanent personal protection by armed bodyguards. In 2008, he made a controversial film about his views on Islam, Fitna. Various attempts to convict him for "hate speech" have failed.

Life

Wilders in Prague (2019)

Wilders was born on 6 September 1963 in the city of Venlo, in the province of Limburg. He is the son of Johannes Henricus Andreas Wilders and Anne Maria (Ording) Wilders.He is the youngest of four children, and was raised Catholic. His father was Dutch; his mother Maria Anne Ourding was born at Sukabumi, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) with a mixed Dutch and Indonesian background

Wilders's maternal grandmother has been claimed to have been from a wealthy Jewish family. Wilders grandfather is stated to have been camp commander at an infamous post-WWII Dutch camp for "Nazi" collaborators. Wilders worked in Israel as a youth, has visited Israel many times, and is married to the Jewish-Hungarian diplomat Krisztina Marfai. He has expressed strong support for Israeli and Jewish interests. Despite this, few Dutch Jews have voted for his party. See also Jews and immigration.

Wilders received his secondary education at the Mavo and Havo middle school and high school in Venlo. Reflecting passions that came to the fore later in his career, Wilders took a course in health insurance at the Stichting Opleiding Sociale Verzekeringen in Amsterdam and earned several law certificates at the Dutch Open University.

In 1997, Wilders was elected for the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) to the municipal council of Utrecht, the fourth largest city of the Netherlands. On 25 August 1998, he was elected to the Netherlands' national parliament. In September 2004, Wilders left the VVD, having been a member since 1989, to form his own political party, Groep Wilders, later renamed the Party for Freedom.The crunch issue with the VVD party line was about his refusal to endorse the party's position that European Union accession negotiations must be started with Turkey, rightly stating, Turks are not and cannot be Europeans. the negotiations started in October 2005 and were put on ice in June 2018, proving Wilders right.

Wilders considers himself to be a "right-wing liberal". The Party for Freedom has advocated anti-immigration (in particular anti-Muslim immigration), anti-Islamization, and anti-EU policies. It opposes Muslim ritual slaughter but not Jewish ritual slaughter despite doing so in the past. The change may be related to Jewish protests regarding this. The party was founded in 2006. It gained 15.5% of the votes in 2010, 10.1% in 2012, and 13.1% in 2017.

A less often mentioned aspect of the 2017 election was the success of a non-Dutch ethnic minority interest party. "Denk, a party founded by Tunahan Kuzu and Selçuk Öztürk has become the first ever ethnic minority party in the Dutch parliament. The party, which has long been accused of being a mouthpiece for Turkish president Recep Erdogan, won three seats in an election focused on immigration. Party leader Tunahan Kuzu said: “This is the beginning of a new chapter in our history. The new Netherlands has given a vote in the House."

15 May 2024

The results of the 2023 Dutch general election were described as "one of the biggest political upsets in Dutch politics since World War II",[75] with the PVV becoming the largest party in the House of Representatives. On 13 March 2024, Wilders announced that he was withdrawing his bid to become prime minister, citing a lack of support from potential coalition partners. The next day, he described his withdrawal as unfair and "constitutionally wrong". Wilders announced on 15 May 2024 that a deal had been reached to form what was set to be the most patriotic and identitarian government in the Netherlands in decades, almost six months after a major election victory. Viktor Orbán was one of the first to congratulate Wilders on X (former Twitter). "We're going to form a government," said Pieter Omtzigt, leader of the centrist NSC party. "We'll wait and see who Wilders proposes as a prime minister candidate."

Almost six months after Dutch anti-Islam populist leader Geert Wilders won the Dutch election, he and three other party leaders have agreed a provisional agreement to form a right-wing government. A final decision has not been made on the next Dutch prime minister, but it will not be Mr Wilders, who gave up the chance in a bid to secure a deal. "We have a negotiators' agreement and we will now put it to our [parliamentary] factions," the Freedom Party leader told journalists. If they agree, his party will go into government with the conservative-liberal VVD, the centrist New Social Contract and the Farmer Citizens Movement (BBB). Mr Wilders' far-right PVV attracted a quarter of the national vote in last November's election, after agreeing to put on hold some of his more extreme policies, such as banning the Quran, Islamic schools and mosques. His victory stunned European politics, following 14 years of broad-based coalitions led by VVD Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who has continued as caretaker prime minister since the election. But the four-party talks on forming a right-wing coalition collapsed in February, and by March Mr Wilders had abandoned his bid to become prime minister. The man who brokered that first round of talks, Ronald Plasterk, is now favourite to be offered the job of prime minister. A 67-year-old former Labour party minister, he gave up a flourishing academic career as a molecular biologist to go into politics. Mr Wilders, 60, said no decision had yet been made on who would lead the government, although it had been discussed in the negotiations. The deal came hours before the latest deadline imposed by the current coalition negotiators and Mr Wilders warned that adjustments could still be made to the deal. Parliament will then debate the terms next week. When asked what had taken them so long, the leader of the conservative-liberal VVD, Dilan Yesilgöz, pointed out that they were after all "setting the framework for the next government". Her VVD came a poor third in the election and lost 10 seats in parliament. Few details have emerged of the four parties' plans for government, although they are expected to adopt hardline policies on asylum and immigration. According to political correspondents, there are particularly strong measures on migrant workers, although the government would continue to respect international agreements. Significant investment is also expected in social security and housing as well as defence and agriculture. The four party leaders are not expected to be part of the new cabinet but will remain in parliament. Unusually, the so-called extra-parliamentary cabinet is likely to be made up of ministers who are not in the parliament either, but will have to follow the main terms of the agreement. The head of the Farmer Citizen Movement, Caroline van der Plas, said it was "very nice for the Netherlands" that they had reached a deal.

External links

• Website
• Geert Wilders’ Unrequited Love
• Geert Wilders and the Growing Jewish Influence in Dutch politics
• Wilders, the “golden pompadoured maverick”
• The effect of Breivik’s actions on Geert Wilders and the PVV