ENTRE News – The Freedom Party (PVV) led by Geert Wilders won the Dutch general election on Thursday (23/11). The following is a profile of Geert Wilders, who is known as an anti-Islam politician.
The PVV won a dramatic victory over an alliance of left-wing parties led by European Union commissioner Frans Timmermans.
From preliminary calculations, Wilders and his party, Freedom (PVV), won by winning 37 out of 150 votes in the lower house of parliament, narrowly ahead of their closest rival, an alliance of left-wing parties which received 25 votes. This is the first time Wilders’ party has won the most votes in 25 years. With these temporary results, Wilders still has to gain several votes to form a new government to replace PM Mark Rutte who has been in power in the Netherlands since 2010. The following is Geert Wilders’ profile.
Geert Wilders was born on 6 September 1963 in Venlo, Netherlands. He is now 60 years old. He is the son of a father named Johannes Henricus Andreas Wilders and a mother named Anne Maria. His father is from the Netherlands, while his mother has mixed Dutch-Indonesian blood.
Wilders began his political career in 1989 when he became a member of the VVD Party. However, it was only in 1997 that Wilders was elected to the Utrecht City Council. But because he strongly opposed his party’s views, Wilders was finally expelled from the VVD Party in September 2004. He then founded his own party Groep Wilders in 2006 which was later renamed Freedom (PVV). Wilders generally considers himself a right-wing liberal.
Wilders is also known for his criticism of Islam. In fact, he emphasized that ‘I don’t hate Muslims, I hate Islam,” Wilders said in 2008, quoted by The Guardian. Quoted from the Telegraph in 2007, Wilders also suggested that Muslims tear up half of the Koran if they want to live in the Netherlands because contains bad things. Then there are many more statements by Wilders that insult the Koran, such as calling the Koran a fascist book and a book that incites hatred FOR4D.
Apart from that, Wilders also often insults the Prophet Muhammad SAW. Because he often insulted, degraded and made fun of Islam, Wilders was once threatened with having his head beheaded by the Australian Islamic fundamentalist preacher, Feiz Mohammad. He was also threatened with death by Al Qaeda and by a Muslim in Pakistan.
Even in 2009, England banned Wilders from entering the country because he was considered a threat to the public. In 2010, Wilders was also unable to enter Germany for holiday. In 2012, Wilders also failed to obtain a visa to enter Australia.