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Far-Right Populist Slips Ahead Of Dutch Election

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

First the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Then Donald Trump won our presidential election. And the Netherlands might be the third country to ride that wave of populist nationalism. The Dutch head to the polls Wednesday. The Freedom Party led by Geert Wilders is running an anti-immigrant, Holland-first campaign. NPR's Frank Langfitt has been following Wilders on the campaign trail, and he has this report.

FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Mandy Janssen waited in the tiny town of Valkenburg in the south of the country Saturday to meet the man she believes will look out for Dutch people, Geert Wilders. Mandy is 28 and works in elder care. She says the Dutch government has slashed funding for old people while spending a fortune on refugees who've poured in here from wars in the Middle East.

MANDY JANSSEN: All the people are welcome I mean if you live in a war. And we totally understand that as people, they also deserve a good life. But you have to take care of your own people first.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken).

GEERT WILDERS: Ja.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken).

WILDERS: Ja.

LANGFITT: Wilders arrives and stops to speak to a crowd of reporters. There's news to discuss. The Dutch government has just blocked Turkish officials from coming to the Netherlands to rally the many Turks who live here to vote in a referendum back home. The government said the events would constitute a, quote, "risk to public order and security." Wilders takes credit for pushing the head of the ruling Liberal Party, Prime Minister Mark Rutte, into taking a hard line against the Turkish government.

WILDERS: Without our pressure in the elections, our government would not have done so - so excellent decision.

LANGFITT: Later that night, the confrontation would spark violent protests by Turks in Rotterdam. Back in Valkenburg, a reporter asks if Islam threatens Europe.

WILDERS: It certainly is a threat. It's an existential threat. I'm not talking about all the Muslims. But the Islamic ideology is an ideology of violence, of hate, of submission and not of assimilation. And I believe Islam and freedom are incompatible.

LANGFITT: This sort of rhetoric explains the scrum of more than two dozen cops and security agents who surround Wilders as he greets supporters. Al-Qaida and ISIS have threatened to kill him. Wilders is wearing a bulletproof vest beneath his gray suit coat.

(LAUGHTER)

WILDERS: (Foreign language spoken).

LANGFITT: Smiling and relaxed, he poses for a selfie with Mandy, the elder care worker, and her sister Denise.

(CROSSTALK)

LANGFITT: His signature mane of bleach blonde hair dominates the photo. Afterwards, like many Wilder voters, Mandy says she wishes he would temper his language.

JANSSEN: Sometimes he says things and you're like, OK, that's not the right way to say it. But...

LANGFITT: Give me an example.

JANSSEN: There was a moment when he was in a bar, and he asked people, do you want more or less...

DENISE: Moroccan people.

JANSSEN: Everybody was - less, less, less, less. That was very big thing in Holland.

DENISE: Too extreme.

JANSSEN: That's Denise speaking. But she says it won't stop her from voting for Wilders.

DENISE: Because all the good things he stands for kind of outweigh the extreme things.

LANGFITT: Andre Krouwel is a political scientist at the Free University of Amsterdam. He says Wilders has tapped into anxiety among various Dutch who feel they're losing their place in the world, including the kind of people Mandy and Denise look after.

ANDRE KROUWEL: There's a lot of older voters who feel very insecure about how this country's changing with immigration. They feel very vulnerable because they can't improve their life conditions anymore. And they feel like the undeserving are coming into our country, taking away or undermining our welfare state, our health care.

LANGFITT: Krouwel doesn't think Wilders will do well Wednesday. After leading in the polls, he's been slipping. And even if he wins the most seats in Parliament, other major parties say they won't work with him. But Krouwel says Wilders has driven the political conversation in Holland to the right.

KROUWEL: The right-wing parties which will enter government will have taken onboard his points and also the whole rhetoric of this election. Fifty percent of all debate is about his issues.

LANGFITT: As Krouwel puts it, even if the Freedom Party wins zero seats in Parliament, Wilders has already succeeded. Frank Langfitt, NPR News, Valkenburg, the Netherlands. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Frank Langfitt is NPR's London correspondent. He covers the UK and Ireland, as well as stories elsewhere in Europe.
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