Earlier this week the Liberals (VVD) and Freedom Party (PVV) approved the deal which makes concessions to PVV’s Koran-bashing populist leader Geert Wilders over banning the burqa and tightening immigration rules in the Netherlands.
But many prominent Christian Democrat (CDA) members object and the future of the Netherlands’ first post-war minority government hinges on the vote in the city of Arnhem by close to 5,000 CDA members. The vote is expected on Saturday afternoon.
“I thought about throwing in the towel but I stayed because in the CDA we have a tradition of taking responsibility and because I was convinced that we would come to a satisfactory agreement,” CDA leader Maxime Verhagen told the conference.
“So I say yes, let’s do it. For the CDA and for everyone in the Netherlands.” Polls indicate a majority of CDA members want their party to agree the deal.
Under the proposal, the country would be able to bar entry to radical religious leaders. Convicted immigrants would be expelled more rapidly and immigrants would lose their temporary residence permit if they failed an integration exam.
“The PVV has driven a wedge in society ... by scapegoating 1 million of our fellow citizens and wanting to make second-class citizens of them,” CDA politician and Justice Minister Hirsch Ballin wrote in a newspaper column on Saturday.
“The endorsement of Wilders as a political partner must be stopped, better late than never, before any more division in our country brings more exclusion and distress.”
Despite public hostility to immigration in several European countries, mainstream political parties have a taboo against forming coalitions that include far-right groups.
Financial markets are watching the congress closely because of concerns that scuppering the agreement would prolong efforts over the past four months to form a government and add to uncertainty when the Dutch face tough spending decisions.
Emotions ran high inside and outside the congress. Several speakers spoke strongly against Wilders, one calling him Judas while a protest was held earlier in Arnhem with demonstrators carrying banners such as “Yes to freedom, No to the PVV.”
“I am 20 years old, from Rotterdam, a Muslim and a Dutchman, a proud Dutchman. How can I convince my friends to vote for the CDA?” a party member asked the conference.
Prosecutors have opened a case against Wilders on charges of inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims. He goes on trial on Monday.
Wilders’s rise to power has raised concerns about the image of the Netherlands abroad. He has called Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan “a total freak” and said he would advocate that the Netherlands leave the European Union were Turkey to join.
Asked at a VVD party meeting on Saturday about the risks of charting foreign policy with PVV support, VVD leader Mark Rutte, who is poised to become the next prime minister, said it would require dexterity but stressed the PVV would not be represented in the cabinet.
Weelders’s Freedom Party was placed third in the June election behind the Liberals and Social Democrats. The Christian Democrats placed fourth.
