Party for Freedom

The Party for Freedom (Dutch: Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) is a Dutch right-wing political party. Founded in 2005 as the successor to Geert Wilders' one-man party in the House of Representatives, it won nine seats in the 2006 general election, making it the fifth largest party in parliament, and third largest opposition party. It came second in the 2009 European Parliament election, winning 4 out of 25 seats. In the 2010 general election it won 24 seats, making it the third largest party.

With programme items like administrative detention and strong assimilationist stance on the integration of immigrants into Dutch society, the Party for Freedom breaks from the established centre right parties in the Netherlands (like the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD)). In addition, the party is consistently Eurosceptic.^[10][11] PVV is the name under which the foundation Stichting Groep Wilders operates. It has Geert Wilders as its sole member.^[12][13][14] This makes it unique in the Dutch parliament.

History

Wilders was in part motivated by the murders of Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn, who both had similar political viewpoints.^[15]

The party's history starts with Geert Wilders' departure from the VVD in September 2004. Wilders could not accept the VVD's positive stance towards Turkey's possible accession to the European Union, and left the party disgruntled.

Although the VVD expected Wilders to return his parliamentary seat to the party, he refused, and continued to sit in parliament as a one-man party, Groep Wilders (Wilders Group).

In June 2005, Wilders was one of the leaders in the campaign against the European Constitution, which was rejected by Dutch voters by 62%.^[16]

Bart Jan Spruyt, director of the conservative Edmund Burke Foundation, joined the party in January 2006, in order to formulate a party programme and to train its prospective representatives for the forthcoming national election (then still scheduled for 2007).^[17] Spruyt left the party in the summer of 2006, after it proved unable to build broad conservative backing, and people like Joost Eerdmans and Marco Pastors proved unwilling to join.^[18] After the 2006 elections, Spruyt said he was not surprised that the Party for Freedom had gained seats but maintained that, if the Party for Freedom had sought cooperation with Eerdmans and Pastors, it would have won more, even enough to bring about a CDA-VVD majority government .^[19] Later, Spruyt commented that the PVV had a 'natural tendency' toward fascism.^[20] He later qualified the statement, though he didn't withdraw it. Former PVV candidate Lucas Hartong called Spruyt's claims 'a cheap insinuation'.^[21]

In an HP/De Tijd profile dated December 2006, the party was described as a cult, with an extremely distrustful Wilders only accepting fellow candidates completely loyal to him, and compared to the Socialist Party led by Jan Marijnissen but without reaching that degree of organisational perfection.^[22]

On 10 January 2007, the PVV announced it would not field candidates at the forthcoming Provincial elections. This meant it would be unrepresented in the Senate.^[23]

On 13 January 2007, NRC Handelsblad reported that a PVV intern had solicited for signatures on the website forums Dutch Disease Report and Polinco, the latter a forum described as far right by various organisations, among them the Dutch Complaints Bureau for Discrimination on the Internet.^[24] Any party participating in this election was required to collect at least 30 signatures from supporters in each of the 19 electoral districts; of the 1500 signatures the PVV received, the Dutch Antifascist group identified 34 known far-right supporters. In a response, Wilders said he regretted that far-right sympathisers had provided signatures, denied any personal responsibility for them and reasserted his dislike of far-right parties like Front National and Vlaams Belang.^[25][26][27] Noted writer and columnist Leon de Winter later declared the affair to be the result of a campaign of demonisation against Geert Wilders led by NRC Handelsblad and Volkskrant newspapers, as well as the broadcaster VARA.^[28]

Former labour union leader and prominent Christian Democrat Doekle Terpstra proposed an initiative against Geert Wilders and the PVV on 30 November 2007, in newspaper Trouw.^[29] Terpstra sees Wilders as promoting intolerance, and discrimination against Muslims. He is supported in his cause by the large Dutch trade unions and refugee organisations. Politicians and the public are divided on Terpstra's initiative.^[30] The newspaper De Pers reported the next day that much of Terpstra's support did not actualize.^[31]

Polling by Maurice de Hond published in March 2009 indicated that the PVV was the most popular parliamentary party. The polls predicted that the party would take 21 per cent of the national vote, giving it 32 out of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament. If the polling results were to be replicated at a genuine election, Wilders would be a major power broker and could become Prime Minister.^[32][33][34] However, De Hond's results are not uncontroversial, as they are based on a panel of people who have signed up for the election poll on internet and thus are not a random sample. According to Joop van Holsteyn, professor of election research, therefore, De Hond's polls are not representative of the population.^[35] Other Dutch polls (Politieke Barometer and TNS NIPO) have shown contrasting results, with the PVV often getting less support, though still remaining very popular.

By February 2010, the PVV had once more become the most popular party, according to a poll by Maurice de Hond which said it would win 27–32 parliameary seats in the next election, up two from the previous poll in early January.^[36][37]

In the parliamentary elections of 9 June 2010, the PVV went from 9 to 24 seats (of 150), winning over 15% of the votes. This makes the PVV the third largest party in parliament.

By July 2010 the PVV again became the biggest party in the polls after the parliamentary elections, following difficulties in forming a new coalition and the PVV technically being excluded from the coalition talks because the CDA showed reluctance to cooperate with the PVV. According to the polls, the PVV would get 35 seats in a new election, which is a record high number.^[38]

In August 2010, during the difficult cabinet formation following the elections, the PVV emerged as a prominent player in a proposal for a new minority government in the Netherlands. While the party would not gain a ministerial appointment, the PVV would tolerate a centre-right minority government coalition: a proposed deal that would make the party one of the most influential forces. Led by Ivo Opstelten, a former mayor of Rotterdam who was appointed mediator for the next stage of negotiations, the forming of a government of VVD and Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) with support of the PVV was negotiated. The former two parties would have to rely on the latter to get important legislation through. With this deal the Netherlands would follow the "Danish model", since in Denmark the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party also stayed out of government but supported a minority center-right administration.^[39] The very fact of the participation of the PVV in these coalition negotiations has caused fierce discussions in political circles and was considered very unlikely until recently.

After the elections, CDA parliamentary fraction president Maxime Verhagen first had stated that as a matter of principle he refused to negotiate with VVD and PVV about a conservative government, saying that the PVV represented views that could not be reconciled with Dutch law. These objections on principle disappeared in five weeks and Verhagen turned out to be willing to negotiate over a cabinet whose fate would (also) lie in the hands of Wilders.^[40]

Platform

The Party for Freedom combines economic liberalism with a conservative programme on immigration and culture. The party seeks tax cuts (€16 billion in the 2006 election programme), de-centralisation, abolition of the minimum wage, and limiting child benefits and government subsidies. Regarding immigration and culture, the party believes that the Judeo-Christian and humanist traditions should be taken as the dominant culture in the Netherlands, and that immigrants should adapt accordingly. The party wants a halt to immigration from non-Western countries. It is sceptical towards the EU, is against future EU enlargement to countries like Turkey and opposes a dominant presence of Islam in the Netherlands.^[41] The party is also opposed to dual citizenship (see below).

Political issues

Dual nationality

In February 2007, PVV parliamentarian Fritsma introduced a motion that would have prohibited any parliamentarian or executive branch politician from having dual citizenship. The PVV claims that it is unclear where a dual national's loyalty lies. The motion would have made it difficult if not impossible for Labour MPs Ahmed Aboutaleb and Nebahat Albayrak to become members of the new government. The motion had to be withdrawn, however, after heavy pressure from the President of the House of Representatives, Gerdi Verbeet (Labour Party).^[42] University of Maastricht law professor Twan Tak sees a risk in executive branch officials having dual citizenship, and was angered by Verbeet's insistence to close the debate.^[43] In spite of this, the PVV planned to call for a vote of no confidence against junior ministers Aboutaleb and Albayrak when the new cabinet had its first meeting with the House of Representatives, claiming that their respectively Moroccan and Turkish passports put their loyalties into question.^[44] In the event, the motion was only supported by the PVV itself.^[45]

The issue of dual nationality, however, was not over yet. On 2 March, Radio Netherlands reported that Labour Party MP Khadiya Arib, who had been sworn into parliament the day before, was sitting on a commission appointed by the king of Morocco.^[46] The PVV held that this commission work endangers Arib's loyalty to the Netherlands, and that she should choose between being a member of the Dutch parliament or the Moroccan commission. Geert Wilders said that Arib's remark on national television that her loyalty lay neither with the Netherlands nor Morocco was shameful.^[47] The liberal VVD had also problems with Arib's work, saying that her "double orientation would hurt Dutch integration."^[48] All other parties were appalled by the PVV and VVD's behaviour.^[49]

The party fielded a controversial motion in the 2007 general deliberations on the immigration budget, calling for a stop to immigration from Muslim countries. The House of Representatives at first declined to bring the motion forward for debate. Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin said it was in violation of the Dutch constitution and international law.^[50] Another motion by the PVV, against police officers wearing veils, did gain a parliamentary majority.^[51]

Wilders has also put forward the idea that the Netherlands should open up its own "Guantanamo Bay" that would detain people which the intelligence service sees as a security threat, somewhat akin to the Israeli and Algerian administrative detention.^[52]

Party programme

Other noteworthy policies that Wilders mentions in his party program (link is to a Dutch-language document):

• Recording ethnicity for all Dutch citizens. (p. 11)
• Introduction of a Direct Democracy
• No Coffee Shops within a radius of at least 1 kilometer from schools (p. 11)
• Active repatriation of criminals of foreign citizenship and Dutch nationals originating from the Netherlands Antilles (p. 11)
• Deportation of criminals with a Double nationality or single foreign nationality back to their country of origin, after a prison sentence. (p. 13)
• Restrictions on immigrant labour from new EU member states and Islamic countries (p. 15)
• Removal of resources from anti-climate change programmes, development aid and immigration services (p. 17)
• Abolition of the Senate (p. 19)
• Closing Islamic schools (p. 15)
• Hard punishment of violence against homosexuals and jews, which particularly comes from the Islamic corner (p. 13)
• Forbid islamic gender apartheid (p. 15)
• General Pension (AOW) age most stay 65 (p. 21)
• Governmental communication to be exclusively in Dutch or Frisian (p. 35)
• Dutch language proficiency and a 10-year Dutch residency and work experience requirement for welfare assistance (p. 15)
• Constitutional protection of the dominance of the Judeo-Christian and humanistic culture of the Netherlands (p. 35)
• Choosing to defend the essential elements of Dutch culture: freedom of homosexuals and equality of men and women (p. 33)
• Repeal of anti-smoking legislation in bars (p. 39)
• Investment in more nuclear power plants and clean coal plants to reduce dependency on imported oil and because coal is cheaper (p. 47)

Name

The name "Party for Freedom" (Partij voor de Vrijheid) was as a reference to the Freedom Party (Partij van de Vrijheid), a Dutch political party founded just after the Second World War, which eventually merged with a faction of social-liberal dissidents from the PvdA led by Pieter Oud to become the VVD in 1948.^[53]

Election results

In the elections for the European parliament in 2009, the party won 17% of the votes.^[54][55]

^[56]

• In March 2009, according to a poll by Maurice de Hond the PVV, if there were elections, would take 18 per cent of the vote and win 27 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives.^[57]

• In December 2009, the party was in joint first place with the governing Christen-Democratisch Appel (CDA), according to a new poll by Maurice de Hond: both parties would get 26 seats.^[58]

• On 3 March 2010, elections for the local councils were held in the municipalities of the Netherlands. The PVV only contested these in The Hague and Almere, because of a shortage of good candidates. MP Raymond de Roon headed the campaign in his home town of Almere. Fellow MP Sietse Fritsma was appointed head of the local election campaign in The Hague. Both men would continue to serve as MPs as well as local councillors after their election.^[59] The PVV made big gains, suggesting that the party and Wilders might dominate the political scene in the run-up to the parliamentary elections scheduled on 9 June 2010. The PVV won in Almere and came second to the Labour Party in The Hague. In Almere, the PVV won 21 percent of the vote to Labour's 18 percent, preliminary results showed. In The Hague, the PVV had 8 seats – second to Labour with 10 seats. The local elections were the first test of public opinion since the collapse of the 4th Balkenende cabinet in February 2010. The municipal elections were overshadowed by the fall of the cabinet and the forthcoming parliamentary elections.^[60] If voters had elected a new parliament, the PVV would have won between 24 and 27 seats in the 150 seat Dutch parliament.^{[61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68]} The Maurice de Hond poll published on 6 March 2010 put the PVV at 27 seats in the 9 June national elections, while the CDA and the Labour Party (PvdA) were both on 24 seats. This poll also showed that none of the three most likely coalitions could form a majority government without taking on a fourth or fifth party.^[69]

• On 8 March 2010, Wilders announced he would take a seat on The Hague city council, after it became clear that he had won 13,000 preference votes. Earlier he had said he would not do so.^[70][71] One week after these local elections, the PVV called for an inquiry into the elections in The Hague, since a YouTube clip allegedly showed irregularities, including more than one person entering polling booths at the same time and a voter not putting the ballot paper into the box. These calls were rejected. The Hague council said the municipal elections had gone well and that any complaint should anyway have been lodged immediately after the results were announced. In Rotterdam, a full recount was held after a protest by Leefbaar Rotterdam, a local party with a programme broadly similar to that of the PVV.^[72][73]

• On 18 March 2010, the PVV gave up trying to form a governing coalition in Almere. In a press release, the party said most of the other parties had refused to give ground to PVV demands on what it describes as "essential issues". These include what the party calls ‘city commandos’: street patrols to keep order in the face of inadequate proper law enforcement. Other obstacles were the PVV’s demands for reduced taxes for Almere residents and its fight against what the party sees as "the increasing influence of Islam in Dutch society". The PVV complained that it was forced to stay in the opposition through the manoeuvring of the political elite.^[74]

• After the 2010 election, when the PVV more than doubled the number of MPs, the party has agreed to back a right-wing minority government of VVD and CDA, without participating in the cabinet.^[75]

Representation

Members of the House of Representatives

After the 2010 elections the party had 24 members of the House of Representatives:

• Geert Wilders – parliamentary chairman.
• Fleur Agema, formerly an LPF member and provincial representative, critical of the way subsidies are spent.
• Harm Beertema, former teacher at a vocational education school.
• Jhim van Bemmel, former small businessman in the music industry.
• Ino van den Besselaar, former civil servant at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. Was sworn in on November 18, 2010 following the resignation of James Sharpe.
• Louis Bontes, former Member of the European Parliament and police officer in Rotterdam.
• Martin Bosma – party secretary, media background worked for CNN, ABC News, NOS News, and RTL News.
• Hero Brinkman, Amsterdam policeman, nicknamed Rambo of the Bellamybuurt.^[76]
• Teun van Dijck, financial specialist with background in consultancy, a kindergarten buddy of Wilders.^[22]
• Willie Dille, formerly active in the health care industry specializing in disability issues.
• Johan Driessen, former lawyer and parliamentary assistant to Geert Wilders.
• André Elissen, former detective and Chief Superintendent in the Dutch Police Force
• Sietse Fritsma, former civil servant with background in immigration matters.
• Karen Gerbrands, former nurse and Councillor in The Hague
• Dion Graus, animal activist, former television presenter, car salesman and sales representative in veterinary products.
• Lilian Helder, formerly employed in a law office.
• Marcial Hernandez, former officer (rank of major) in the Royal Netherlands Army Medical Corps.
• Léon de Jong, formerly employed in the music industry.
• Joram van Klaveren, former Councillor in Almere for the VVD.
• Wim Kortenoeven, former freelance journalist specializing in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
• Eric Lucassen, former non-commisioned officer in the Royal Netherlands Army, and bodyguard.
• Richard de Mos, former primary school teacher, replaced Barry Madlener after his election to the European Parliament.
• Raymond de Roon, a prosecutor responsible for crime-fighting policies.
• Roland van Vliet, former tax adviser.

Given that the party is still relatively young, its 2006 electoral showing was quite remarkable, giving the party more seats in the House of Representatives than well-established parties such as GreenLeft, Democrats 66 and ChristianUnion. Its surprisingly rapid rise in popularity also caught many political pundits off guard, especially as the pre-election polls were predominantly predicting a gain of no more than 6 seats.

The party has seen waves of popularity in the past. In December 2006, some polls put it ahead of the Labour Party, indicating it would win 24 to 32 seats or more.^[77] Its backing for a referendum on Dutch ratification of the European Constitution was in line with the wishes of the majority of voters.^[78] New prosecution attempts against its leader for hate speech and other related events may have helped propel the Party for Freedom to position in the polls in March 2009.^[79]

Classifications

The political position and the ideology of the party are hotly debated. In December 2008, the eighth study "Monitor Racism and Extremism",^[80] conducted by the Anne Frank Foundation and the University of Leiden, has found that the Party for Freedom can be considered extreme right-wing, although "with ifs and buts". Peter Rodrigues and Jaap van Donselaar, who have academically guided the study, explain this classification with the islamophobia, nationalism, and "sharp aversion to the strange", subsumed as racism, which they have observed within the party.^[81][82]

In January 2010, the report Polarisatie en radicalisering in Nederland^[83] (transl. "Polarisation and radicalisation in the Netherlands") by political researchers Moors, Lenke Balogh, Van Donselaar and De Graaff from the Tilburg University research group IVA^[9] stated that the PVV was not an extreme right-wing party, but contained some radical right-wing elements. The study claims that the PVV holds xenophobic ideas, but not antisemitic ideas – the PVV describes its culture as Jewish-Christian humanistic.^[84] "The PVV statements on Islamisation and non-Western immigrants appear to be discriminatory and the party organisation is authoritarian rather than democratic", said the researchers, who were looking into polarisation and radicalism across the Netherlands. They described the PVV as the "new radical right", a party with a national democratic ideology but without extreme right-wing roots. In particular, the report stated that the party's pro-Israel stance showed that it was not neo-Nazi. It tends however towards a national democratic ideology. Wilders called the report "scandalous"—in particular the link between defending the national interest and the radical right.

An alleged earlier version of the report, leaked to the Dutch daily newspaper de Volkskrant in November 2009, said that Wilders' party is an extreme right-wing grouping and a threat to social cohesion and democracy. The paper claimed at the time the researchers were under pressure to water down the conclusions because of their political sensitivity. The Dutch Ministry of the Interior Guusje ter Horst, who commissioned the research, denied exerting any interference.^[85][86] In response, Wilders accused her of "playing a dirty game".^[87][88]

Some commentrators have argued that the party is far-right; for example, the ex-prime minister Van Agt regards the party as ultra-right-wing, and Bert de Vries (CDA) draw comparisons with the Centre Party.^[89] The political scientist Lucardie, on the other hand, considers it necessary to reserve the 'far-right' qualification for national socialists and fascists.^[90]

International scholarly publications have repeatedly referred to the party as far-right.^[91] International media outlets and newspapers have followed this classification.^[92] On the other hand, it has occasionally been regarded as "centre-right".^[93] The party has been regarded by some as anti-Muslim.^[94][30][95] Wilders however maintains that he is not anti-Muslim, only anti-Islam, summing up his views by stating "I don't hate Muslims, I hate Islam".^[96]

Fitna production

In 2008, the Friends of the Party of Freedom commissioned a producer, who acted under the name of "Scarlet Pimpernel Productions", a pseudonym adopted out of fear of reprisal,^[97] to produce Fitna (Arabic: فِتْنَةٌ‎), a short film by Geert Wilders. Approximately 17 minutes in length, it shows selected excerpts from Suras of the Qur'an, interspersed with media clips and newspaper cuttings showing or describing acts of violence or hatred by Muslims. The film attempts to demonstrate that the Qur'an motivates its followers to hate all who violate Islamic teachings. Consequently, the film argues that Islam encourages acts of terrorism, antisemitism, violence against women and homosexuals, and Islamic universalism. A large part of the film deals with the influence of Islam on the Netherlands. The film's title, the Arabic word "fitna", is used to describe either "disagreement and division among people" or a "test of faith in times of trial".^[98] Wilders, a prominent critic of Islam, described the film as "a call to shake off the creeping tyranny of Islamization".^[99]

'Infiltration'

In January 2010, Karen Geurtsen, a Dutch journalist from the magazine HP/De Tijd, revealed a painful breach of security in the PVV and especially around leader Geert Wilders. The Party had often been depicted as a fortress, having no members and avoiding the 'left-wing' Dutch press. In 2009, Geurtsen spent four months working for the party undercover, posing as an intern, "to find out what the party is really like". Afterwards, she claimed that she had enjoyed unchecked access to Wilders. "I could have killed him", were the first words of the article that she published about this operation. She said she had had "dozens" of opportunities to take his life.^[100]

On Twitter, Geert Wilders responded that "the left-wing media had sunk to new depths". Geurtsen insisted that she infiltrated the party "as a service to potential PVV voters who want to know more".^[101]

See also

• Criticism of Islam
• Criticism of Islamism
• Criticism of multiculturalism

References

Bibliography

• Magone, José M. (2011). Comparative European Politics: An Introduction. Routledge. http://books.google.de/books?id=g73UtvxJsFcC&dq=wilders+party+comparative+european+politics&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 

External links

• (Dutch) Home page of Partij voor de Vrijheid
• (Dutch) Party For Freedom in the press
• Expatica – 'Turkey in the EU? Never!
• Expatica – Moroccans want Wilders prosecuted
• Wikinews article on declaration of independence
• Party For Freedom in English