3/16/17, "Dutch PM cheers EU leaders by seeing off far-right's Wilders," Reuters,
Gift from Turkey: With 99 percent of votes counted, Rutte's VVD Party had won 33 of parliament's 150 seats, down from 41 at the last vote in 2012. Wilders was second with 20, and the CDA and centrist Democrats 66 tied for third with 19 each, data provided by the ANP news agency showed....A number of parties including the VVD and the third-placed Christian Democrats (CDA), have already adopted most of Wilders' anti-immigration platform, if not his fiery anti-Islam rhetoric....
Rutte got a last-minute boost from a diplomatic row with Turkey, which allowed him to take a tough line on a majority Muslim country during an election campaign in which immigration and integration have been key issues....
Turkey has been locked in a deepening row with the Netherlands after the Dutch barred Turkish ministers from speaking to rallies of overseas Turks.
Turkey's foreign minister said the views of Wilders - who wants to close all mosques and ban the Koran - were shared by rival parties and were pushing Europe towards "wars of religion".
Erdogan on Thursday said that while Rutte may have won the election, he had lost his country's friendship."
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Added:
3/16/17, "Dutch election: Voters return a new reality," BBC, ,
The result means everything can stay the same, but the reality is far
more fragmented and the mainstream parties would be foolish to ignore
it....The diplomatic stand-off with Turkey presented centre-right leader Mark Rutte with an electoral dream and provided a platform to project his prime ministerial calm across the country.
His victory was decisive and yet he lost a quarter of his seats in parliament. The leader of the EU's sixth largest economy defeated Geert Wilders' Freedom party with "Wilders-lite" policies to woo back those flirting with the idea of voting for the populists....
Labour, traditionally the biggest party on the left, had been the junior party in Mr Rutte's budget-cutting coalition and became the biggest loser on the night....[losing 29 seats].
Geert Wilders [and his Freedom Party] didn't perform as well as the polls predicted. But he came second [with 20 seats] and is claiming a win....More than a million voters chose Mr Wilders' anti-Islam, anti-EU party....
In a campaign dominated by concepts of culture, identity and integration, Geert Wilders succeeded in shaping the debate.
The result suggests a seed has been planned on both sides of the political spectrum. The next challenge for Mr Rutte is to form a coalition."
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Added: Geert Wilders, leading in polls since Nov. 2016, was forced to suspend his campaign in Feb. 2017 when a Moroccan-Dutch member assigned to his secret service detail was found to be leaking Wilders' movements to criminal groups:
2/22/17, "Possible mole in security detail of Dutch frontrunner Wilders," Reuters
"A Dutch secret service agent [of Moroccan background] who was part of the team responsible for protecting Geert Wilders, the frontrunner in next month's election, has been suspended on suspicion of leaking details to a criminal organization, the secret service said on Wednesday.
Wilders, who campaigns on an anti-Islam platform that includes closing mosques and banning immigration from Muslim countries that has led to the protection, condemned the alleged breach, saying he cannot function without adequate security.
Dutch newspapers De Telegraaf and NRC Handelsblad and the country's national broadcaster NOS identified the suspect as an experienced officer in his mid-30s, using his first name and last initial.
Secret Service chief Erik Akerboom said he could not confirm the man's identity but confirmed media reports he has a "Moroccan background."
Akerboom told Business News Radio that "as far as we know" Wilders' safety had not been jeopardized.
Wilders has frequently railed against rogue elements within the Netherlands' Moroccan community and pledged to crack down on "Moroccan scum" who he said were making the streets unsafe as he launched his campaign on Saturday for the March 15 vote.
The agent who was suspended was one of a team tasked with prescreening locations where Wilders is scheduled to make public appearances. He was not a member of Wilders' physical protection team, Akerboom said....
Prime Minister Mark Rutte met Wilders, his chief opponent in the vote, to discuss the suspension.
The ANP News agency reported that Rutte declined comment after emerging from the meeting with Wilders and Justice Minister Stef Blok.
"I can say nothing about these kinds of conversations," Rutte said, repeating his standard response to questions on security measures.
Other Dutch politicians reacted with concern, including Wilders' most vocal critic, Alexander Pechtold of the centrist D66 Party.
"These are very alarming initial reports, and they must be terrible for Wilders to hear," he said in a tweet. "We must not be naive. More clarification quickly, please.""
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Added from Legal Insurrection:
3/16/17, "Dutch Election: Geert Wilders’ Party Places Second," Legal Insurrection, posted by Vijeta Uniyal
"After leading the polls since November 2016, Wilders numbers started to drop when he was forced to abruptly suspend his campaign following a major security breach late February. A Moroccan-Dutch police officer working on his security detail was arrested for allegedly passing on Wilders' movements to criminal gangs. Europe’s leading critic of Islam, Wilders has survived attempts on his life by Islamists and has been living under around-the-clock police protection for nearly 13 years....
Nothing can take away from the fact that Geert Wilders created an entire political movement to fight the rise of Islamism in Europe, despite a sustained campaign of smear and intimidation from the European ruling class and the establishment media. He has been dragged to courts by liberals and received death threats from the Islamists — for daring to speak the truth about political Islam."
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