Elections: Wilders' Almere win below forecast

Thursday 04 March 2010

Geert Wilders' anti-Islam PVV party became the biggest party in the polder city of Almere in Wednesday night's elections, but support was not has high as had been forecast.

The PVV took 21% of the vote and 10 seats on the 39-seat city council. Labour took eight, four down on 2006. The Liberal party VVD was unchanged on eight seats.

Opinion polls before the vote had given the PVV 30% support. In the European elections last June, the PVV took 27% of the vote.

Local Labour leader Alphons Muurlink said his party would not form a coalition with the PVV. 'The party wants to make enormous spending cuts in Almere which will lead to bankruptcy,' he said. 'I do not understand that people vote for a party which wants to exclude others.'

Party leader Geert Wilders has said a headscarf ban in public buildings will be central to coalition negotiations.

Almere is a new city in the Flevoland polder and largely populated by families and older couples who moved out of Amsterdam. The first house in Almere was completed in 1976 and it has had its own city council since 1986.

It is now the eighth biggest city in the country with a population of just under 200,000.

For the full results from the Volkskrant website, click here

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