Wilders did somewhat worse than his polls of early 2010, but far better than his recent polls

When the first reports on the Dutch parliamentary elections came in yesterday, Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party (PVV) had won 22 seats, compared to 31 seats and 30 seats for the two other main parties. News reports today increased PVV’s seats to 24. When I saw the 22-seat, third-place return yesterday, I wondered why Wilders’s supporters were treating it as a great victory, since through much of 2009 and into early 2010, PVV was first in the polls. My question was answered by Dutch blogger “Snouck Hurgronje.”

Snouck wrote to me last evening:

The Freedom Party (PVV) scored 22 seats out of 150 in the 9 June elections. They have stood at nine seats since participating in elections for the first time in 2006.

I replied:

Is this such a great result? I thought Wilders was virtually favored to come in first.

Snouk replied:

His polls were high a few months ago at 27 maximum. At that time they were the biggest party. But the polls dropped to about 16 seats as the elections approached. First Labour rose strongly in the polls to about 33 when they jumped out of the unpopular government coalition and got a new leader, Job Cohen the ultra-dhimmi mayor of Amsterdam. Then a lot of those who favoured the PVV got cold feet as the election approached and the VVD (Wilders’ former, right-liberal party) made a big splash in the polls. The VVD rose to be the biggest party nibbling away at the PVV, with Labour also falling as Mr. Cohen performed badly on TV. Surprisingly Labour came back a bit today.

What seemed to push back the PVV campaign back in the last few months was the Euro crisis. Suddenly the news was not dominated by Geert Wilders and Islam anymore. Most TV debates were about economic issues.

My exchange with Snouck took place last night, when PVV was shown with 22 seats. With the increase to 24 seats today, PVV has won almost as many seats as it was getting earlier in the year when polls showed it with 27. (However, in July 2009, polls were showing it with as many as 32 seats.)

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 10, 2010 05:55 PM | Send