Dutch MP Geert Wilders dubbed his opponent and current PM of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, the “prime minister of the foreigners” in a live face-to-face debate that aired just 36 hours before Holland’s pivotal March 15 elections.
“We need to chose for our own people, for our own parents, and not for the asylum seekers,” Wilders said. “You are not the prime minister of the Netherlands, but of the foreigners.”
“You are being taken hostage by [Turkish President] Erdogan. Close the Dutch borders,” he warned.
“That’s a totally fake solution,” Rutte responded.
“We must directly expel the Turkish ambassador and the rest of his staff from the country, otherwise we accept that we are being insulted,” Wilders said, echoing a Tweet he posted yesterday on the matter.
Rutte attempted to ridicule Wilders’ use of Twitter to speak directly to his constituents, an approach also popular with U.S. election winner, President Donald Trump, who uses the medium as a way to bypass the warped media filter.
“That’s the difference between tweeting from your couch and governing the country,” Rutte mocked. “If you govern the country, you have to take sensible decisions, and that isn’t sensible.”
Wilders attacked Rutte’s history of broken promises, saying, “We would get tax cuts, a tougher policy on immigration, we would get €1,000. And what came out of these promises? We had record after record immigration. And taxes only increased.”
Live Debate: Wilders> "People like PM Rutte are a danger to our country, they are liars and friends of Erdogan"
— Siebe Heemskerk (@HeemskerkSiebe) March 13, 2017
A Twitter poll conducted by De Telegraaf, the Netherlands’ largest corporate publication, reflects that Wilders crushed Rutte in the court of public opinion, with Wilders taking 64% of over 25,000 votes at the time of this writing, which aligns identically with a poll presented by Dutch reporter, Tom van’t Einde, and voted upon by over 16,000 respondents.
The debate could have definitive impact on the election as voters weigh whether to continue with Rutte and the status quo that has the paved the way for the Islamization of Holland, or to take a chance on the nationalist-populist goals of Wilders, whose primary mission is to reverse the Netherlands’ course towards becoming the next Sweden or Belgium.
According to The Economist Group, “Pollsters indicate that a majority of voters are still in doubt between several parties, suggesting that these debates could have a significant influence on the final result.”
Interestingly, Rutte himself has admitted that Wilders’ has a chance to win the election, saying, “There is a real risk that on March 16 we can wake up in this country and Geert Wilders is leading the biggest party and that will send a signal to the rest of the world.”
Currently, the parties of Wilders and Rutte are leading in the Dutch polls, with Rutte’s incumbent VVD slightly ahead, but Wilders has been the clear leader in recent months, so speculation is warranted given the polling reflected in the final days before Brexit and the U.S. presidential election.
Dutch voters will head to the polls tomorrow to decide their future, amidst riots and violence being carried out by Turkish and Moroccan Muslims in major cities in Holland.
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