What the Dutch Want

It also triggered some riots in the port city of Rotterdam.

Ankara’s move comes amid a growing dispute with the Netherlands and Germany over their refusal to allow Turkish government ministers to stage political rallies on their territory and could fuel the populist backlash that has buffeted anti-immigrant parties in Western Europe. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s said Holland was acting like a banana republic. Frank, first, how did relations between these two North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies spiral downward so quickly? All of which led the Turkish government to dismiss the Dutch people (and then the Germans as well) as “Nazis”.

“The question is, do people really want more refugees here?” So the prime minister is urging voters to stick with him.

LANGFITT: Well, the president there, of course, is furious.

Gauck called Dutch nationalism “poisonous and an infection”. This year, Front Nationale is again expected to make it to the final round but many of its priority issues are also adopted by other French politicians.

“We are a country who believes in freedom and we are an emphatic society I would say”.

Wilders split from the Tory VVD party in 2004 to pursue a more openly racist agenda.

While the Dutch election will be closely watched for any surge in the populist vote ahead of voting in the first round of the French election on April 23, talk that the United Kingdom government may trigger Article 50 this week is also increasing political risk and putting downward pressure on the single currency.

Yesterday Prime Minister Rutte warned there is a “real risk” Mr Wilders will win the election.

The PVV leader has vowed to take the Netherlands out of the European Union and close the border to Muslim immigrants if he wins.

Last month, the Daily Mail quoted Mr Wilders’ older brother Paul as saying: “I’m sure my mother has not and will never vote for my brother or his party”.

Even so, Wilders’ message has found strong support in a nation known for its long history of religious tolerance and personal freedoms. The referendum asks the public whether they would like to change Turkey’s system from a parliamentary system to a presidential system. A resolution signed by the remaining political parties read that “no political agreements or arrangements” would be made with the far-right movement which “fails to acknowledge human rights and the principles of democracy”. You are not welcome here.

The debate on Monday evening fits with what seems to be the strategy of both Rutte and Wilders: to portray the election as a choice between the two of them.

Here is everything you need to know about how the Dutch elections will unfold.

“Let us stop the domino affect right here this week, this Wednesday”, Mr. Rutte said.

“A lot of parties are now shouting PVV (Freedom Party) like slogans, but after the elections you won’t hear them any more”, he told newspaper De Telegraaf. I followed Wilders on the campaign trail yesterday and ran into a counter-protester.

The PVV’s mission statement is even more provocative, promising to ban the Quran, close mosques and tax the hijab, which Mr Wilders has called “a useless piece of cloth”.

The famously liberal hotbed in northern Europe has always been seen as something of a testing ground for whether a far-right populist surge that sprung up a year ago will dominate the continent in 2017.

SANNE ELISABETH: It’s divide and conquer.

“You could say these are the quarter finals in trying to prevent the wrong sort of populism to win”.

“Our prime minister did a very good job at the right moment for the elections”, said Albert Busch, an entrepreneur from Limmen. In the months running up to the election, Wilders has consistently been favored to win the greatest share of the vote.

LANGFITT: Happy to do it, Lakshmi.

SINGH: That’s NPR’s Frank Langfitt.