Geert Wilders: the Dutch far-right figurehead sending a chill across Europe

Known for his distinctive platinum-blond hairstyle and his aggressive anti-Islam and anti-immigration rhetoric, Geert Wilders has been catapulted by the Dutch elections to the place he loves most to be: at the centre of attention.

In a political earthquake, preliminary results from Wednesday’s election show Wilders’ Freedom party winning 37 seats of the 150 in the lower house, more than any other party and significantly more than expected in opinion polling during the campaign.

Wilders now has the daunting task of trying to form a working coalition, courting rivals that before the vote categorically ruled out serving in a government led by his party.

From describing Islam as “an ideology of a retarded culture” and calling Moroccans “scum”, Wilders, who is often compared to the former US president Donald Trump for his inflammatory rhetoric and use of social media, has long been a prominent fixture in the European far-right landscape.

Born in 1963 in southern Venlo, close to the German border, Wilders grew up in a Catholic family with his brother and two sisters. He entered politics as a member of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), but left over what he saw as the party’s mild stance on Islam and immigration.

He founded the Freedom party (PVV) in 2004, placing anti-Islam policies at the heart of his party. Wilders said his disdain for Islam was fuelled by the assassination of the radical anti-Islam film-maker Theo van Gogh in 2004 and his time spent in Israel on a kibbutz.

Despite being a media-savvy politician, Wilders’ star appeared to have faded in recent years as younger far-right figures emerged in the Netherlands, including Thierry Baudet, whose nationalist Forum for Democracy came top of the polls with 15% in the 2019 regional elections.

But Wilders’ consistent presence in Dutch politics – as well as the increasingly heated debate over immigration in the Netherlands – seems to have finally struck a chord among a larger group.

Hein de Haas, a sociologist at the University of Amsterdam, said the VVD’s strategy of focusing the campaign on immigration had legitimised Wilders. “The leading VVD party had the cabinet fall over asylum and centred the entire campaign on immigration,” he wrote on X. “As JM Le Pen already said, people vote for the original, not the copy.”

In the run-up to the elections, Wilders had sought to tone down some of his more divisive anti-Islamic rhetoric, hinting that he could drop his proposed ban on mosques and the Qur’an, a move that his critics branded opportunistic.

Instead, he has focused on growing economic concerns, promising to solve the housing crisis and tackle inflation while portraying climate action as a new form of tyranny by The Hague.

Still, some of his more extreme proposed measures – which include restoring Dutch border control, detaining and deporting illegal immigrants, and reintroducing work permits for intra-EU workers – would fundamentally change the DNA of the Netherlands.

In Kyiv, which has faced growing western war fatigue, the results will be a worry. Like other far-right leaders on the continent, Wilders has praised Vladimir Putin’s rule, rallying against what he has described as “hysterical Russophobia” in Europe.

Four years after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, Wilders travelled to Moscow and met senior Russian officials in the Duma, a trip that was fiercely condemned by relatives of Dutch victims of the shooting-down of flight MH17, who blamed him for ignoring Moscow’s part in the disaster.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Wilders has somewhat distanced himself from the Kremlin, calling the invasion a mistake. But a government under Wilders is unlikely to play the same role in helping Ukraine as seen under the longtime prime minister Mark Rutte, who led the effort to deliver F-16 combat aircraft to Ukraine.

In one of the last debates before the election, Wilders said he would not support sending Ukraine more weapons, a statement that will send a chill through Ukraine, as military aid already appears to be faltering.

Much now will depend on what will probably be a prolonged coalition-building process, with both the leader of GroenLinks-PvdA, Frans Timmermans, and the head of the socially liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, having ruled out a government under Wilders.

But in an early triumph for Wilders, Pieter Omtzigt, the leader of the centrist NSC party, indicated that he was open to working with the PVV.

What seems certain is that after six elections, Wilders is closer than ever to power. “It will be hard work, but we are ready to govern,” he said as the first results trickled in. “This is the most beautiful day of my political life.”