THE TELEGRAPH: The far-right Party for Freedom, which has campaigned on a ticket of ending the "Islamic invasion", is expected to double its representation in the Dutch parliament, giving it enough seats to become a potential ruling coalition candidate.
The party is predicted to win 18 seats in the forthcoming elections. It currently holds nine.
Led by anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders, the party claims that 40 per cent of social security payments go to non-Western immigrants and that people of Moroccan origin are suspected of committing crime five times more often than the indigenous Dutch.
"The sluice gates are wide open", Mr Wilders said in a campaign video that showed planes landing in Holland as women in headscarves outnumber natives in shopping street scenes.
"Every day we are confronted with mass immigration: headscarves, burqas, minarets, social security dependence, crime ... it never ends," he laments as dramatic music plays in the background of the clip released ahead of June 9 parliamentary elections.
"Whole neighbourhoods are being Islamised."
Mr Wilders' bold move onto the shaky ground of multi-cultural tolerance, for long a matter of Dutch pride, "has prompted other parties to adopt a stricter approach to security and the integration of Muslims", said political analyst Martin Rosema of Twente University. >>> | Monday, June 07, 2010
