Party for Freedom

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Party for Freedom Partij voor de Vrijheid
Political leader	Geert Wilders
Party Chair	Geert Wilders
Chair of the Second Chamber Parliamentary Party	Geert Wilders
Chair of the European Parliament Delegation	Barry Madlener
Founded	22 February 2006
Split from	People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
Seats in the First Chamber
Seats in the Second Chamber
Seats in the European Parliament
Political Ideology	Nationalism[1] Conservatism[2] Liberalism Euroscepticism
European Parliament Group	Non-Inscrits
Colours	Red, White and Blue
website	http://www.pvv.nl/
See also	Politics of the Netherlands Political parties Elections

The Party for Freedom (Dutch: Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) is a Dutch right-wing political party. Founded in 2006 as the successor to Geert Wilders's one man faction in the House of Representatives of the Netherlands, it won nine seats in the 2006 general election, making it the fifth largest party in parliament, and third largest opposition party. It came second in 2009 European Parliament elections, winning 4 out of 25 seats.

The Party for Freedom breaks from the established centre right parties in the Netherlands like the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy with its hardliner assimilationist stance on the integration of immigrants—especially Muslim—into Dutch society. Otherwise, it votes consistently Eurosceptic.

[edit] History

The party's history starts with Geert Wilders' departure from the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) in September 2004. Wilders could not reconcile himself with the VVD positive stance towards Turkey's possible accession to the European Union, and left the party disgruntled.

Although the VVD would have expected Wilders to return his parliamentary seat to the party, Wilders refused, and continued to sit in parliament as a one-man faction, Groep Wilders (Wilders Group).

In June 2005, Wilders was one of the leaders in the campaign against the European Constitution, which was rejected by Dutch voters by 62%.^[3]

Bart Jan Spruyt, director of the conservative Edmund Burke Foundation, joined the party in January 2006, in order to formulate a party programme and to train its prospective representatives for the upcoming national election (then still scheduled for 2007).^[4] Spruyt left the party in the summer of 2006, after it proved unable to provide for a greater conservative movement behind it, and people like Joost Eerdmans and Marco Pastors were unwilling to join the party.^[5] After the 2006 elections, Spruyt said he wasn't surprised that the Party for Freedom won seats in the election, but he maintains that if the Party for Freedom sought this cooperation with Eerdmans and Pastors, the party would have won more seats, even enough so to help a possible CDA-VVD cabinet to a majority.^[6] Later, Spruyt commented that the PVV had a 'natural tendency' toward fascism.^[7] He later qualified the statement, though he didn't withdraw it. Former PVV candidate Lucas Hartong called Spruyt's claims 'a cheap insinuation'.^[8]

In a HP/De Tijd profile dated December 2006 the party was described as a cult, with an extremely distrustful Wilders only accepting fellow candidates completely loyal to him, and compared to the SP led by Jan Marijnissen but without reaching that degree of organizational perfection.^[9]

On January 10 2007, the PVV declared not to field candidates for the upcoming Provincial elections, this will also lead to the party being unrepresented in the Senate.^[10]

On January 13 2007 NRC Handelsblad reported that a PVV intern had solicited for signatures on the website forums Dutch Disease Report and Polinco, the latter forum being described as far right by various organizations, among them the Dutch Complaints Bureau for Discrimination on the Internet.^[11] Any party participating in this election was required to collect at least 30 signatures of party supporters in each of the 19 election districts; of the 1500 signatures the PVV received, the Dutch Antifascist group identified 34 known far right supporters. In a response, Wilders said he regretted that far right sympathizers provided signatures, claimed no personal responsibility for the soliciting and repeated his dislike for far-right parties like Front National and Vlaams Belang.^[12][13][14] Noted writer and columnist Leon de Winter later declared the affair to be the result of a campaign of demonization against Geert Wilders led by NRC Handelsblad and Volkskrant newspapers, as well as the VARA (broadcaster).^[15]

Former labour union leader and prominent Christian Democrat Doekle Terpstra proposed an initiative against Geert Wilders and the PVV on November 30, 2007, in newspaper Trouw.^[16] Terpstra sees Wilders as promoting discrimination against Muslims and intolerance. He is supported in his cause by the large Dutch trade unions and refugee organizations. Politicians and the public are divided on Terpstra's initiative.^[17] The newspaper De Pers reported the next day that much of Terpstra's support did not actualize.^[18]

Recent polling by Maurice de Hond published in March 2009 has indicated that PVV is currently the most popular parliamentary party. The polls predicted that the party would take 21 per cent of the national vote, taking 32 out of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament. If the polling results were to be replicated at an official election, Wilders would be a major power broker and could become the Dutch Prime Minister.^[19][20][21]

[edit] Platform

The Party for Freedom combines economic liberalism with a conservative programme towards immigration and culture. The party seeks tax cuts (€16 billion in the 2006 election programme), de-centralization, abolition of the minimum wage, and limiting child benefits and government subsidies. Regarding immigration and culture, the party believes that the Judeo-Christian and humanist traditions should be treated as the dominant culture in the Netherlands, and that immigrants should adapt accordingly. The party wants a halt to immigration from non-western countries. It is skeptical towards the EU, is against future EU enlargement with countries like Turkey and opposes the presence of Islam in the Netherlands.^[22] The party is also opposed to dual citizenship (see below).

[edit] Political issues

[edit] Dual nationality

In February 2007, PVV parliamentarian Fritsma introduced a motion that would have prohibited any parliamentarian or executive branch politician from having dual citizenship. The PVV claims that it is unclear where someone's loyalty lies when one has two nationalities; the motion would have made it difficult if not impossible for Labour MPs Ahmed Aboutaleb and Nebahat Albayrak to become members of the new government. The motion had to be retracted though, after heavy pressure from the chairman of parliament, Gerdi Verbeet (Labour Party).^[23] University of Maastricht law professor Twan Tak sees a risk in executive branch officials having dual citizenship, and was angered by Verbeet's insistence to close the debate.^[24] In spite of this, the PVV planned to call for a vote of no confidence against junior ministers Aboutaleb and Albayrak when the new cabinet had its first meeting with the House of Representatives, as the party's claimed that their Muslim religion put their loyalties into question (something the proposed citizenship law would have no effect upon).^[25] Although the parliamentary motion in the end was only supported by the PVV itself^[26].

The issue of dual nationality however, was not over yet. On March 2, Radio Netherlands reported that Labour Party MP Khadiya Arib, who was just sworn into parliament the day before, is sitting in a Moroccan commission appointed by the Moroccan king.^[27] The PVV held that this commission work by Arib endangers her loyalty to the Netherlands, and that she should choose between being a parliamentarian and sitting in that commission. Geert Wilders said it was shameful that Arib said on national television that her loyalty lies neither in the Netherlands, nor Morocco.^[28] The liberal VVD had also problems with Arib's work, saying that her "double orientation would hurt Dutch integration."^[29] All other parties were appalled by the PVV and VVD's behaviour.^[30]

The party fielded a controversial motion in the 2007 algemene beschouwingen of the immigration budget, that called for a stop of immigration from Muslim countries. The House of Representatives at first would not move to bring the motion up for discussion. Justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin said the motion was in violation of the Dutch constitution and international law.^[31] Another motion by the PVV, that found it undesirable for police agents to wear veils, did find a parliamentary majority.^[32]

Wilders has also put forth the idea that the Netherlands should open up its own "Guantanamo Bay" that would detain people which the intelligence service sees as a security threat, somewhat akin to the Israeli administrative detention.^[33]

[edit] Name

The name "Party for Freedom" (Partij voor de Vrijheid) was chosen in order to refer to the Freedom Party (Partij van de Vrijheid), a Dutch political party founded just after the Second World War which eventually merged with a faction of social-liberal dissidents from the PvdA, led by Pieter Oud, to become the VVD in 1948.^[34]

[edit] Election results

^[35]

[edit] Representation

[edit] Members of the House of Representatives

After the 2006 elections the party has 9 representatives in the House of Representatives, chosen are:

• Geert Wilders - parliamentary chairman.
• Fleur Agema, the only female representative, formerly an LPF member and provincial representative for this party, critical of the way subsidies are spent.
• Raymond de Roon, a prosecutor responsible for crime-fighting policies.
• Hero Brinkman, Amsterdam policeman, nicknamed Rambo of the Bellamybuurt.^[36]
• Martin Bosma - party secretary, media background worked for CNN, ABC News, NOS News, and RTL News.
• Dion Graus, former car salesman and sales representative in veterinary products.
• Barry Madlener, formerly city council member of Leefbaar Rotterdam with a background in real estate.
• Teun van Dijck, financial specialist with background in consultancy, a kindergarten buddy of Wilders.^[9]
• Sietse Fritsma, former civil servant with Immigration background.

[edit] Popular support

The Party for Freedom has no members,^{[clarification needed]} so it is difficult to assess its support. However, the educational and income levels of the supporters are higher than previously thought, the Party for Freedom finding a base in middle-class voters in non-Muslim neighborhoods who fear their freedom and self-expression are threatened by unassimilated Muslim immigrants.^[37] There is a taboo to voting for a party labeled in the popular media as extreme, but that taboo is slowly fading as more educated conservative voters choose the Party for Freedom.^[38]

Given that the party is still a relatively young political organisation, its 2006 electoral results can be regarded as quite remarkable, giving the party more seats in the House of Representatives than well-established parties such as GreenLeft, Democrats 66 and ChristianUnion. Its surprisingly rapid rise in popularity also caught many political pundits off guard, especially as the pre-election polls were predominantly predicting a gain of no more than 6 seats.^{[citation needed]}

The party has seen waves of popularity in the past—in December 2006, some polls put it ahead of the Labour Party, indicating it would win 24 seats.^[39] Its backing of a referendum on the ratification by The Netherlands of the European Constitution was in line with the majority of voters who supported such a referendum.^[40] New prosecution attempts against its leader for hate speech and other related events propelled the Party for Freedom to the biggest party in the polls in March 2009.^[41]

[edit] Film Production

In 2008 The Friends of the Party of Freedom, under the name of "Scarlet Pimpernel Productions", a pseudonym adopted out of fear of reprisal.^[42] funded the production of Fitna (Arabic: فِتْنَةٌ‎)a short film by Geert Wilders. Approximately 17 minutes in length, the film shows selected excerpts from Suras of the Qur'an, interspersed with media clips and newspaper clippings showing or describing acts of violence and/or hatred by Muslims. The film wishes to demonstrate that the Qur'an motivates its followers to hate all who violate the Islamic teachings. Consequently, the film argues, Islam encourages, among others, acts of terrorism, antisemitism, violence against women and homosexuals, and Islamic universalism. A large part of the film deals with the influence of Islam on the Netherlands. The film's title "fitna" is used to describe "disagreement and division among people" or a "test of faith in times of trial".^[43] Wilders, a prominent critic of Islam, described the film as "a call to shake off the creeping tyranny of Islamization".^[44]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• (Dutch) Home page of Partij voor de Vrijheid
• (Dutch) Party For Freedom in the press
• Expatica - 'Turkey in the EU? Never!
• Expatica - Moroccans want Wilders prosecuted
• Wikinews article on declaration of independence
• Party For Freedom in English

v • d • e Political parties in the Netherlands House of Representatives: Christian Democratic Appeal (41) | Labour Party (33) | Socialist Party (25) | People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (21) | Party for Freedom (9) | GreenLeft (7) | ChristianUnion (6) | Democrats 66 (3) | Party for the Animals (2) | Reformed Political Party (2) | Proud of the Netherlands (1) Senate: Christian Democratic Appeal (21) | People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (14) | Labour Party (14) | Socialist Party (11) | ChristianUnion (4) | GreenLeft (4) | Reformed Political Party (2) | Democrats 66 (2) | Party for the Animals (1) | Independent Senate Fraction (1) | Solidara (1) European Parliament: Christian Democratic Appeal (5) | Party for Freedom (4) | Labour Party (3) | People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (3) | Democrats 66 (3) | GreenLeft (3) | Socialist Party (2) | ChristianUnion (1) | Reformed Political Party (1) Portal:Politics - List of political parties - Politics of the Netherlands