- Title: Dutch paradox: Voters head for far right amidst rising prosperity
- Date: 3rd March 2017
- Summary: VOLENDAM, THE NETHERLANDS (FEBRUARY 11, 2017) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF VOLENDAM HARBOUR KIDS WITH SNOW BALLS PEOPLE WALKING ALONG HARBOUR (SOUNDBITE) (Dutch) RETIREE, WILLEMVEERMAN, SAYING: "Imagine what a mess it would be in the zoo if all the cages were left open, and that's what's happening currently in Europe, all the borders are o
- Embargoed: 17th March 2017 09:38
- Keywords: elections Wilders far-right Volendam Rutte Party for Freedom
- Location: VOLENDAM, AMSTERDAM AND SPIJKENISSE, THE NETHERLANDS
- City: VOLENDAM, AMSTERDAM AND SPIJKENISSE, THE NETHERLANDS
- Country: Netherlands
- Topics: Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
- Reuters ID: LVA00166EN3NR
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The Dutch fishing village of Volendam hardly seems like a hotbed of discontent: tidy, prosperous, little crime or unemployment. Yet a third of its voters are likely to back anti-immigrant nationalist Geert Wilders in the March 15 general election.
His appeal highlights a paradox that is challenging the status quo in Western democracies and fraying the European Union: voters are spurning the mainstream in favour of anti-establishment populism in times of economic well-being.
The trend is especially striking in the Netherlands, where the economy is set to be the best performer in the eurozone this year and the people consistently rank near the top of global measurements of happiness and material comfort.
Dutch anti-establishment sentiment is "first and foremost about culture and identity and less about economics," said Sarah de Lange, a University of Amsterdam political scientist studying the rise of far-right parties in the EU.
It echoes the dissatisfaction that fuelled Britain's vote to quit the EU and Donald Trump's election as U.S. president, and the Dutch vote looks like the next chapter of the populist backlash, even if Wilders does not win big enough to gain power.
Polls show Wilders' Party for Freedom (PVV) will more than double its seats in parliament to 26, almost even with Prime Minister Mark Rutte's conservatives who stand to tumble from 41 to 27, with his coalition partner Labour plunging to 14 from 38.
But because centrist parties rule out any alliance with Wilders, he will probably end up in the opposition again.
Still, he has already succeeded in pushing mainstream politics toward the hard right, with centrist parties now endorsing an immigration ban.
Anger at pro-EU metropolitan political elites over years of liberal immigration policy is a major driver of Wilders' appeal.
"Imagine what a mess it would be in the zoo if all the cages were left open," said Volendam retiree Willem Veerman, explaining why he sympathises with Wilders' anti- immigration plans. "Well, that's what's happening currently in Europe."
Volendam is a largely white, middle-class community with small but freshly painted houses and spotless streets. Non-Western immigrants are a largely invisible 2 percent of its 8,000 population, joblessness is 3 percent, the crime rate 3 per 1,000 people and the median home price 325,000 euros ($343,800).
De Lange said anti-immigrant feeling in places like Volendam often arises from fears that "big city problems" like crime will spill into their tranquil neighbourhoods.
Volendam is a half-hour drive from the cosmopolitan, heavily immigrant Amsterdam, the Netherlands' largest city.
Non-Western immigrants comprised 7.5 percent of the Dutch population in 1996, and that figure rose to 12.1 by 2015, according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Around five percent of the population of 17 million is now Muslim.
The Dutch were long renowned for multicultural tolerance rooted in their history. But immigration has become the pivotal election issue regardless of whether voting districts are high- or low-income or have large or small numbers of foreigners.
Dutch Muslima Dounia Jari told Reuters she is afraid for the community.
"Personally, I am not very afraid for myself, but I am afraid for others though, because the hatred he spreads can make people blind and make people not listen to each other and it divides people, and I really see that it does divide people, and his voters don't really analyse what he is saying and it might come thus far that they might take the power in their own hands, to say it like that," Jari said.
An austerity campaign under Rutte also eroded respect for mainstream leadership because it hit middle- and lower-income Dutch much harder than the rich, stoking perceptions of unfairness and inequality on which Wilders has capitalised.
Though the Dutch economy is buoyant now, spearheading eurozone growth, it stagnated at zero growth from 2008 to 2014 as the government cut spending to comply with EU budgetary rules in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis.
Pollster Maurice De Hond said a part of the population was pessimistic about their financial future.
"They think that the changes of the last 10-20 years were mainly meaning for them dangers instead of opportunities, and that's a category of people of about 30-35 percent of Dutch population, usually also with lower education, who are favourable for a party like party of Wilders," De Hond said.
Austerity bred much resentment - above all, over cuts to health services and care for the elderly. Together with ongoing immigration, the cuts deepened a sense among many that the country was deteriorating while politicians seemed oblivious.
While most of the Dutch are positive about their personal situation, seven of 10 are pessimistic about the country as a whole, citing social divisions and diminishing national character, a recent poll showed.
Wilders' campaign slogan, "The Netherlands Ours Again", plays to traditional Dutch patriotism and nostalgia, appealing to traditional values and the Dutch of life that are perceived to be eroded by immigrant populations.
The election is the first of three in EU founding-member states this year, with populist parties in France and Germany also counting on anxieties over immigration and identity to bring them gains that could transform the continent's politics. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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