Dutch anti-Islam leader is major winner in polls

Dutch anti-Islamist leader Geert Wilders scored major gains in local authority polls Thursday, making him a serious challenger for power in a June national election, preliminary results showed.

In the first test of public opinion since the collapse of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende’s coalition government last month, Wilders’s Freedom Party (PVV) led in the city of Almere and was second in The Hague.

The results came on top of an opinion poll showing that the PVV, which campaigns against Muslim immigration as its main platform, would win the most seats — 27 in the 150-member Dutch parliament — in the June 9 election.

Oh my. If the PVV really does win the most seats, and the left parties refuse to form any coalition with the PVV (naturally enough) or the major center parties… then it will be up to the center right parties to form a coalition with the PVV… and that would mean the Dutch would take a serious lunge to the right.