Is the PVV (Party for Freedom) ready to govern? Political historian Koen Vossen spoke to PVV-dissidents to get a look at the party and its leader. 'It is bizarre to see how incredibly small that circle around Wilders is.’

It was because of the rise of Pim Fortuyn that political historian Koen Vossen was ‘strolling around in populism.’ He was working on his doctoral dissertation about new parties at the time. Suddenly, the subject had become topical with the rapid rise of the politician, who was murdered in 2002.

The reactions throughout the country were strong when Geert Wilders gained 24 seats in 2010 and got a huge influence on the government policy as a confidence-and-supply party in a minority cabinet. That was the reason for Vossen to write a book about the PVV. ‘I did not want to immediately delve into the emotions, but to interpret the PVV as a historical phenomenon. To look at the party and its voters with a certain empathy.’ That book became Rondom Wilders, Portret van de PVV (2013).

‘It was difficult to find people who wanted to say something about the party,’ the historian says in a video call from his residence in Utrecht. ‘The PVV is very closed off, the people I found were usually dissidents. That’s always a bit tricky, since they often still have a bone to pick with the party. After conducting 22 interviews and reading other reports, I got a fairly good picture of how the PVV works.’

‘After all, you won’t come closer than this, considering that the party rejects all official interview and information requests.’ After the publication of Rondom Wilders, other dissidents also wanted to tell their story to Vossen. He incorporated the new information in the English version of the book, The Power of Populism: Geert Wilders and the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands (2016).

Have you ever spoken to Wilders?

‘No. (Laughs hard.) He has never responded to any question whatsoever. He didn’t even say no. You would be quicker to speak to the King, Willem-Alexander. Other party members, such as Martin Bosma and Fleur Agema, also don’t engage. Especially if you tell them you work for a university in Nijmegen. They want nothing to do with those people.’

You spoke to various ex-PPV people about the party and Wilders as a leader, what image do they portray?

‘That it’s a truly peculiar party. One of the strangest parties we have. Worldwide, I would even say. That was barely touched upon during this campaign.’

Why is this party so different from other Dutch parties?

‘The PVV revolves around one person, with a few adjutants on the side. There are barely any executives, a complete shortage of money, and an unbelievably strong atmosphere of amateurism. All that with a leader who is a huge soloist, to say the least; a control freak within his own club. Especially when it is about nationwide matters; the Provincial States and municipalities don’t actually matter to him.’

‘There is a very small inner circle and you can just fall out at any moment’

‘You can observe all kinds of phenomena in the PVV that you can also find in an autocracy. A kind of divide-and-rule mechanism around a big leader. One person will be his favourite one moment, and the next, someone else will become his favourite. There is a very small inner circle which you can fall out of at any moment, now finding yourself in the outer circle. Wilders doesn’t like Members of Parliament who have their own profile too much. Hero Brinkman for example, was put lower on the electoral list. Brinkman eventually left.’

‘This is visible in how the electoral list is created. It is really obscure. As little as possible is fixed within procedures. If you make rules about it, then people can point it out to you. But if you keep everything vague, you can decide it all yourself.’

How was that structure set up?

‘When Wilders left the VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) and continued alone, he was incredibly scared to end up in a situation similar to the LPF (Pim Fortuyn List): odd people would come into the party and lead to internal fights and chaos. He wanted to keep control, which was probably a smart move at first.’

‘They then made a virtue of necessity and concluded that this actually worked better. No party members that you have to keep into consideration or complicated departments that have their own hobbyhorses. Members sometimes push the party into a direction that a lot of voters do not actually want. The voters don’t care anyway, as you see now.’

What about the people in the PVV-party, are fine with it too?

‘There have been conflicts in the past, but the ones who started it always lost. Wilders just does not respond to them, he does not give in. Then over time, those people leave. That happened recently with Harm Beertema and Lilian Helder, who were in the Chamber for over ten years. Wilders barely responded to their leave. It is really noteworthy, how that happens.’

Nonetheless, the PVV has become the biggest party by far in this election. Were you surprised?

‘I was definitely surprised. Wilders and the PVV gave me a very comatose impression in the past few years. But then suddenly, they were brought to life due to the fall of the cabinet and the VVD opening the door for participation. I think Wilders saw the opportunity and jumped right in.’

‘The pond in which Wilders can fish is incredibly small’

‘I do not think that he expected that success himself either. I find the electoral list with only 44 potential Members of Parliament a strong clue for that. You wouldn’t expect to get 37 seats if you sent in such a short list. Currently, there is a risk of what we call ‘list exhaustion’ (when a party does not have enough candidates to fill the seats they won at the election, ed.), because you might go to the cabinet or you might lose people along the way.’

How would you explain his success?

I think we, as the ‘progressive’ Netherlands, have underestimated the power of the slogan ‘The Dutchman at number 1.’ A lot of people think: ‘they have great stories and visions for the future in The Hague, but I do not feel like they stand up for me.”

‘Always telling people that certain ways of thinking, behaving, and consuming are wrong: you should not eat meat, light up fireworks, or smoke. That moral judgement has created a lot of bad blood.’

How do you think this formation will go on?

‘The reality is that Wilders just does not have people. The pond in which he can fish is incredibly small. The people on the electoral list now are practically the same as in 2017, and back then, it was practically the same as in 2012. It is bizarre to see how incredibly small that circle around Wilders is. On top of that, a lot of them have a double function: for example, they are a Member of the First Chamber and of the Provincial States.’

‘The candidates for the Second Chamber are for a large part, not people with big governmental abilities. They are not at all used to thinking in compromises and to understanding the small margins of the democracy. I think the SGP (Reformed Political Party) has much more people to chose from, to just name a small party.’

‘It is a peculiar situation and I cannot predict the future, but if you look at how the party is organised, it is so clumsy that I cannot imagine them ever seriously governing. A lot of the people I interviewed mentioned that Wilders was already struggling with the confidence-and-supply construction (2010-2012, ed.). Wilders started to dislike it more and more. All those compromises and hassles, that is just not for him.’

‘Year after year, he was going all-in as the opposition and now he has to radically chance, so that will characteristically be really difficult as well. But we shall see.’

Translated by Milou Aluy-van der Meij