Geert Wilders, who compares the Koran to Mein Kampf, has been named the Netherlands’ politician of the year in a poll run by public broadcaster NOS.
Mr Wilders’ pithy and shocking soundbites – he warned of a “tsunami of Islamisation” – have dominated headlines, while his parliamentary outbursts have brought an adversarial style of politics to the muted consensus to which the Dutch are attuned.
Mr Wilders’ proposed solutions are deeply radical: stop all Muslim immigration, ban the building of mosques and ask the 1m Muslims among the Dutch population of 16m to “go to their own countries” or give up their religion.
He remains a highly controversial outsider and many Dutch Muslims and non-Muslims alike would rather not discuss him. But his Party for Freedom, the PVV, won nine of 150 seats in parliament in the last election and it regularly polls above that level.
The NOS poll naming him politician of the year combined votes from the public and those of the parliamentary press corps.