Election winner Geert Wilders (60) wants to ‘give the Netherlands back to the Dutch’: soft hair, soft face, hard politics

Now, according to forecasts, the representative of the right-wing populist Freedom Party (PVV) has clearly won the House of Representatives elections. He is likely to have more than doubled his share of the 150-member parliament to an estimated 37.

If Wilders finds suitable and willing coalition partners, he could even become prime minister after 25 years in parliament. His promise: he wants to ‘give the Netherlands back to the Dutch’ and let them vote on leaving the EU – Nexit.

Under protection due to death threats

His nationalist attitude has repeatedly endangered his life. He has been under protection for years due to death threats and is said to change his whereabouts every night. Protests broke out worldwide in 2018 when Wilders launched a competition to find the best caricature of the Prophet Mohammed.

Wilders constantly criticizes Muslim immigrants. During the election campaign he promised an asylum ban and “no Islamic schools, Qurans and mosques”. Some time before, he had also called for a ‘headscarf tax’, a tax on women who wear a headscarf.

Because he posed a threat to ‘community harmony and therefore public safety’, the left-wing British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith (61) refused him entry in 2009. Wilders was invited to the House of Lords by a British politician to show his 15-minute film ‘Fitna’. The film, which criticizes the Koran as a ‘fascist book’, links verses from the Koran to images of terrorist attacks. This film also sparked protests from Muslims worldwide.

In court several times

Wilders, who is seen as the ‘heir’ of the right-wing populist Pim Fortuyn († 54), who was shot in 2002, often politicizes on the border of legality. After ‘Fitna’ he was charged with sedition in 2010, but was acquitted. When he shouted to his fans in 2014 whether they wanted more or fewer Moroccans and that he would arrange it, he was taken to court again. Here too, he was acquitted of incitement to hatred and discrimination and only convicted of insults.

Wilders has two sisters and a brother with whom he quarrels because he repeatedly criticizes him publicly. Paul Wilders (69) said in a Spiegel interview about the youngest of the family: “He spreads hatred.” His brother insults immigrants, but forgets that he himself has foreign blood running through his veins, Paul Wilders wrote on Paul writes about the Wilders family: “We are all migrants.”

Foreigner as a woman

Geert Wilders also looked outside the Netherlands when choosing his partner. His wife Krisztina Marfai, about whom not much is known, is a Hungarian diplomat of Jewish descent, whom he married in Budapest in 1992. According to media reports, the two do not see each other often for security reasons. They have no children, but they do have two cats with their own social media channels.

After working for insurance companies, Geert Wilders studied law. Like Trump, he is a big fan of Israel, where he worked for a few months as a teenager in the Moschaw Tomer settlement. He was baptized a Roman Catholic, but left the church and now describes himself as an agnostic.

The Netherlands voted because the government coalition under Prime Minister Mark Rutte (56) collapsed on July 7. The point of contention was the discussion about the reunification of relatives of migrants. The answers to this controversial question and to other migration questions have now been definitively given. With the election victory of Geert Wilders, voters have had their say about where they want to send their country.