The price of recession GEERT WILDERS, a far-right populist politician, has been stirring up Dutch politics for nearly a decade, but he has never lured many people onto the streets. Unlike more mainstream Dutch parties, Mr Wilders’s Party for Freedom (PVV) has no dues-paying members and propagates its anti-Islamic, anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic message largely through the media. But on September 21st, the PVV adopted a new tactic, staging a rally in The Hague to demand a halt to the Dutch government’s latest austerity measures.According to the police, only a thousand demonstrators turned up. But the low turnout belies Mr Wilders’s popularity. With the Dutch public turning against EU-imposed austerity, the coalition government is paralysed. Polls suggest that if elections were held today the PVV, which calls for the Netherlands to block immigration and to withdraw from the euro and the EU, would come first.This represents a sharp shift from a year ago, when Dutch voters shunned Mr Wilders in favour of the Liberal prime minister, Mark Rutte, and the Labour Party of Diederik Samsom. The grand coalition that Mr Rutte and Mr Samsom formed…
The Economist: Europe
