Polls ahead of the Netherlands general election this week suggest the radical left wing Socialist Party will overtake the far right Freedom Party.
A recent murder has exposed the racist rhetoric of party’s leader Geert Wilders. He had invented a typical “white working class” couple called Henk and Ingrid. They suffered losing their jobs and paying taxes to support immigrants.
Wilders used them in speeches for years. Then two months ago Aziz Kara, a 64 year old Turkish man, was killed in an apparent racist attack by a real couple called Henk and Ingrid.
Wilders built his popularity by scapegoating migrants and Muslims. Mainstream Dutch politicians used Wilders’ Freedom Party as an ally in their government.
But the Socialist Party has undermined his support, with a left wing campaign to stop the cuts. The party has emerged as a threat to the established Labour Party.
Yet no electoral party has condemned the murder of Aziz Kara, not even the Socialist Party.
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