Geert Wilders has repeated it regularly in recent decades. When the PVV leader was asked whether he aspired to be prime minister, he invariably said what a politician in that position should say: that only the strong hand of his leadership would put the country on the right track.
On Wednesday it became official that it will not happen. Despite his victory in the parliamentary elections, the largest party with 37 seats, he withdraws his formal claim to the Tower. An altruistic choice, he said on X: “The love for my country and voter is great and more important than my own position.”
A revised version followed on Thursday morning. It was “undemocratic”, he complained to the cameras, that as leader of the largest faction he would not become Prime Minister. He implicitly blamed the NSC and the VVD, neither of which was interested in cooperation under Prime Minister Wilders.
In those parties you heard condoning that “Geert” had to temper the emerging frustration among his supporters on Thursday. As before with Pim Fortuyn, some of Wilders' voters see him as a messiah. The PVV leader did not want to lose their support, so the transition from greatness to victimhood followed.
But already the day after the elections, potential coalition parties received signals via the PVV that Wilders was open to discussion about the premiership.
The PVV leader combines amiability in negotiations with a steely mental state. He is not one to withdraw his claim to the Tower without consideration. But anyone who paid attention already knew that he did not see himself living the life of a prime minister. Never being able to avoid the cameras, paying attention to vain people and whiners, always having to be available to everyone: nothing for him.
Influence over power
It turned out to be the most decisive choices in his career. People around him saw it happen again and again: given a choice, Wilders consistently preferred influence over power.
In 2004, he chose a risky political existence on his own feet rather than remaining in the VVD faction, a power factor in The Hague that had been in a coalition continuously for ten years. In 2012, after a year and a half, he stopped his role in the cabinet of the first VVD Prime Minister, Rutte I, knowing that he would be outside the power formation for years.
The most telling period was the 2017 campaign. After he was convicted at the end of 2016 for his 'less less' statements in 2014, he shot up in the polls. The result was that three months before the elections he was a street length ahead of his competitor Mark Rutte: 35 for 23 seats.
Wilders then made one unnatural choice after another. For a trivial reason he refused to participate in some crucial television debates. In the last weeks of the campaign he was lost for days, including for employees. Even an attempt at contact from the so-called Secret Committee, in which faction leaders secretly consult with the intelligence services, was not answered by him. A mystery: Wilders is the only faction leader who fully attends all meetings of this committee. He also lost this chance for power – the international press was en masse in The Hague – through his own actions: on election day, Rutte won 33 seats, he 20.
But his parliamentary style, his preference for tough confrontation, has also always placed him at a distance from power. He often didn't seem to notice how much he was offending people with his sharp tongue. And the art of accommodation, elementary for the Hague ruler, is completely foreign to him. One of his favorite quotes, frequently quoted in the faction room, is from Winston Churchill from 1941: Never give in. Never. Never. Never.
It also explains why he becomes radicalized so easily and quickly at times: anyone who criticizes him can count on his resistance. In 2005 he still believed in understanding and courses for followers of radical Islam. Two years later the prophet Mohammed was Hitler. Something similar happened around those “less less” statements. After he initially misspoke in a NOS interview, he indicated to colleagues that he had probably gone too far. But when the PvdA confronted him, he had the infamous evening staged, including a chanting crowd, for which he was convicted by the Supreme Court in 2021.
Human knowledge
In addition, his human knowledge is often inadequate, as was evident several times in this formation. From the appointment of Gom van Strien as informant to the public pressure on Pieter Omtzigt, a man about whom they have been telling in the CDA for fifteen years that he will dig in if you treat him in a non-businesslike manner.
There are plenty of examples that show that parliamentarian Wilders influences public opinion but lacks aptitude for political administration. “Man cannot go beyond his human limitations,” wrote Nescio Poet. It is the same with the leader of the PVV: a man of relatively great influence on the country, also a man who cannot handle the government.
#Wilders #man #great #influence #handle #board