Dutch far-right voters waver between doubt and conviction ahead of October elections
In Spijkenisse, a city that was long considered one of the poorest in the Netherlands but which now strives to attract middle-class residents who are moving away from downtown Rotterdam, a couple of retirees we met at the shopping center were not named Henk and Ingrid, but Nico and Caroline. They spoke while strolling between a nail salon, discount stores and a fast-food kebab restaurant. "Wilders wanted to defend ordinary people, but he did nothing, achieved nothing before bringing down the government!" said Nico. Did he vote for the PVV? Nico, a former Rotterdam port worker, would not say, but he asserted that Wilders would "for sure" not get his vote on October 29, the date when the country will hold new parliamentary elections. As for Caroline, she no longer intends to vote. "All that circus for nothing," she said with a sigh. On the local level, Spijkenisse has always been politically dominated by a local group named Ons ("We"), which holds 10 of the 37 seats on the municipal council (compared to three for the PVV).
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