In the Field Podcast: What will happen if Geert Wilders wins the Dutch election?
Wilders' anti-Islam message is being well received by Dutch voters angry about immigration and the European project.
For those who have always thought of the Netherlands as a liberal bastion of Europe, the run up to the Dutch elections has been a shock. Geert Wilders, a right wing populist who has pledged to ban Sharia law and close down mosques, is expected to make huge gains at the expense of mainstream parties on both the left and the right.
Wilders' Party for Freedom (PVV) is polling neck-and-neck with the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), which is headed by current Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and has the populist right looking to Holland as the next major scalp after Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.
Even if Wilders' PVV gains in the elections on 15 March, he will be unlikely to form part of the next government as both the VVD and the Labour Party (PvDA) have ruled out going into coalition with him. But his vast support would be a symbolic victory for Europeans who oppose immigration and the European project.
This week on In the Field, IBTimes UK reporters Sofia Lott Persio and Isabelle Gerretsen - who have just returned from a five-day reporting trip to the Netherlands - speak to host Orlando Crowcroft about the elections and its potential aftermath.
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