13 November 2014

Poll puts Wilders far-right party on par with Liberals

A new opinion poll in the Netherlands shows Geert Wilders’s anti-Islam, anti-EU Freedom Party neck-and-neck with the Liberals, led by prime minister Mark Rutte, as the threat posed by returning Islamic State jihadists replaces the MH17 air disaster at the top of the national agenda.

A weighted average of the country’s four main political polls shows the Liberals losing three seats compared with a month ago, and the Freedom Party gaining three. The poll has the Liberals and the Freedom Party each taking between 25 and 29 seats, an outcome a long way from Mr Rutte’s high of 41 seats in the 2012 general election and from the lacklustre 15 won by Mr Wilders. [THE IRISH TIMES] Read more