Leader of PVV, member of parliament (Tweede Kamer) since 1998
Part of: Dutch Politics
Geert Wilders has been the most polarising figure in Dutch politics for two decades. He started as a VVD MP in the 1990s, drifted rightward, and eventually split off to form his own party — PVV — in 2006. Since then he's been the one constant in Dutch politics: always there, always loud, always a factor.
He has bleached-blond hair that has become almost a brand. He lives under permanent police protection — one of the strictest security arrangements of any politician in the world — because of death threats following his public statements about Islam.
He genuinely believes Islam is not just a religion but a political ideology incompatible with liberal democracy, and he's been saying this consistently for twenty years. He wants to ban the Quran (comparing it to Mein Kampf), close mosques, stop Muslim immigration, and end what he calls the Islamisation of Europe.
Economically he's harder to place. He opposes pension (pensioen) cuts, he's against austerity, he's occasionally pro-welfare state — as long as the benefits go to the "right" Dutch people. This gives him crossover appeal with working-class voters the left has lost.
Wilders communicates almost entirely through Twitter/X. He's masterful at provocation and staying in the news cycle. His parliamentary speeches are theatrical. He rarely does long interviews with critical journalists and when he does, he stays on message.
He's been charged with criminal incitement twice. In 2016 he was convicted of discrimination (for asking a crowd if they wanted "fewer Moroccans" and getting the chant back). He appealed, and Dutch courts spent years on it. His supporters call it political persecution; his critics point out he did literally say the thing.
After winning the 2023 election, he couldn't form a coalition himself — too many parties refused to govern with him. Eventually a workaround was found: Formatie produced a cabinet with VVD, NSC, and BBB where Wilders stays in parliament as party leader while a non-partisan prime minister (Dick Schoof) leads the government. It's a strange construction, but it works for now.
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