AMSTERDAM: Far-right populist Geert Wilders wants to be the Netherlands’ next prime minister and would focus his efforts on curbing immigration, he said following a landmark election win that will have repercussions in the Netherlands and beyond.

Wilders’ win sent a warning shot to mainstream parties across Europe ahead of European Parliament elections next June, which will likely be fought on the same issues as the Dutch election: immigration, cost of living and climate change.

“We’ve had it with the old politicians,” voter Herman Borcher said in the eastern town of Enschede, summing up the mood.

A fan of former US president Donald Trump and Hungary’s eurosceptic Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Wilders is openly anti-Islam, and anti-EU and said “the Netherlands will be returned to the Dutch.”

But his most radical ideas — and in particular any plans to take the country out of the EU or ban the Holy Quran — will be rejected by other parties he must work with in order to form a coalition government, meaning he will have to compromise.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2023