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Post by pieter on Mar 21, 2019 3:11:55 GMT -7
Forum big winner in provincial elections, set to take 12 senate seatsPolitics March 21, 2019Thierry Baudet. Photo: Martijn Beekman via HH With all of the votes counted in Wednesday’s provincial elections, Thierry Baudet’s right-wing nationalist Forum voor Democratie has won most votes and will take 13 seats in the senate in May.
Forum, which is pro Nexit and does not believe in climate change, campaigned on national issues and did not draw up policies for any of the 12 provinces it will now be represented in.
‘Arrogance and stupidity have been punished,’ Baudet said in his victory speech. ‘We are being ruined by the people who should be protecting us,’ he said. ‘We are being undermined by universities and journalists, by the people who design our buildings.’ Sopporters of Forum voor Democratie cheer when the election results come in an it is clear that Forum voor Democratie is the largest winner.Senate Thierry Baudet during his victory speech wednesday evening in front of his supporters and the Dutch national public and commercial press and mediaThe four coalition parties will now control 31 of the 75 seats in the senate and will need the support of a fifth party to pass controversial legislation. Forum, Labour and Groenlinks, which almost doubled its support, could all fulfill that role.
Thierry Baudet adresses the Dutch press after it became clear that his party became the big winner, wednesday evening.
Big losers of the night were Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration PVV which is on target to lose four of its nine senate seats, and the Socialists which will sink from nine to four.
Wilders, whose support has been declining for years and has fallen 40% in the provinces, described his party’s losses as ‘limited’. ‘Six parties is not nothing,’ he said, adding that that the ‘unique PVV voice’ will continue to heard in the senate.
Turnout was up sharply on the last provincial vote, with some 56% of people casting their vote. It was highest (60%) in Zeeland and Utrecht. Thierry Baudet surrounded by the Dutch press and media after the victory of his party, which became the largest political party in the senateA modest Geert Wilders congratulated the winners Forum voor Democratie and GroenLinks with their victory. He said that he "Ofcourse would have liked to stand here as a winner, but the new comer Forum voor Democratie took 3 of our seats and 9 from other parties. I congratualte Thierry Baudet. The PVV will continue to work hard in the senate."Preliminary results - VVD from 13 to 12 seats (Ideology: Conservative liberalism, Political position: Centre-right) - Forum voor Democratie from 0 to 13 seats (Ideology: Dutch nationalism, Conservatism, Right-wing populism, National conservatism, Conservative liberalism, Euroscepticism, Direct democracy, and E-democracy. Political position: Right-wing) - CDA from 12 to 9 seats (Ideology: Christian democracy. Political position: Centre-right) - GroenLinks from 4 to 9 seats (Ideology: Green politics, Social democracy, Pro-Europeanism. Political position: Centre-left to left-wing) - PvdA from 8 to 7 seats (Ideology: Social democracy, Christian left [historical], and elements of the Free-thinking Democratic League [historical], en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-thinking_Democratic_League ) - D66 from 10 to 6 seats (Ideology: Social liberalism, Liberalism and Pro-Europeanism; Political position: Centre) - PVV from 9 to 5 seats (Ideology: Dutch nationalism, National liberalism, Right-wing populism, Anti-Islam, Anti-immigration and Euroscepticism. Political position: Right-wing to far-right.) - ChristenUnie from 3 to 4 seats (Christian democracy, Social Christianity, Social conservatism and Soft Euroscepticism) - SP from 9 to 4 seats (Socialist Party; Ideology: Democratic socialism, Social democracy, Left-wing populism and Soft Euroscepticism) - Partij voor de Dieren from 2 to 3 seats (Party for the animals) (Animal rights, Animal welfare, Environmentalism en Soft Euroscepticism) - 50PLUS unchanged at 2 (Party of the Elders, centrist) - SGP unchanged at 2 (Orthodox Protestant -Calvinist- political party, theocratic, bible oriented, fundamentalist christian) - DENK none (Migrant party, Social Democracy, Leftwing populism) - OSF (independent, local parties) none Read more at DutchNews.nl:
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Post by pieter on Mar 21, 2019 3:22:49 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Mar 21, 2019 3:39:14 GMT -7
Like the PVV Forum voor Democratie gets the attention of Leftwing opponents and anti-fascists groups.
Dutch anti-fascists shout: Not now, not never, never again fascism!
Thierry Baudets house was attacked by radical feminists. Politicians condemned the attack and painting of his house door in Amsterdam.
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Post by pieter on Mar 21, 2019 3:42:48 GMT -7
Dutch journalists often are sharp and critical in their questioning of the Forum for Democratie leaders
Baudet was confronted by the female journalist in the beginning with the question whether there is a relation between IQ and race. Hiddema and the number two on Baudet's party list for the Dutch municipal elections, 2018 in Amsterdam, Yernaz Ramautarsing, stated they believed it to be true while Baudet refused to answer the question. Deputy Prime Minister Kajsa Ollongren stated that Forum for Democracy is a bigger threat than the Party for Freedom and that members have an unhealthy fascination for race differences; Baudet made a complaint for defamation at an Amsterdam police station. Hiddema supported him as his advocate. In a debate a few days later, he no longer refused to answer the question and mentioned he shares Ramautarsing's opinion on the subject.
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Post by pieter on Mar 21, 2019 7:43:42 GMT -7
Dutch populist vote surge costs PM Rutte senate majorityThierry Baudet during his victory speech at the party meeting on election night, wednesday eveningThe governing centre-right coalition in the Netherlands has lost its senate majority after a populist party surged in provincial elections.
The anti-immigration Forum for Democracy is set to win most votes and have as many seats in the upper house as Prime Minister Mark Rutte's party.
The election came two days after a suspected terror attack in Utrecht.
Addressing supporters, party leader Thierry Baudet bitterly criticised Mr Rutte's immigration policies.
"Successive Rutte governments have left our borders wide open, letting in hundreds of thousands of people with cultures completely different to ours," he told the cheering crowd.
Mr Baudet, who was criticised for continuing to campaign after Monday's shooting on a tram, said Dutch people were being "destroyed by the people who are supposed to be protecting us".
Analysts say he may team up with the anti-Islam Freedom Party, led by far-right politician Geert Wilders. Mr Wilders has seen his party's seats decline from nine to five.
With about 94% of the vote counted, Forum for Democracy is believed to have won the most votes. Forum for Democracy had no seats in the current 75-seat upper house. It is now set to have 12.
Mr Rutte will now need the support of other parties beyond his own coalition to pass legislation. The 38 seats previously held by his coalition will now fall to 31.Who is Thierry Baudet?By Anna Holligan, BBC Hague correspondent When I first met Thierry Baudet in 2014 he leapt into the passenger seat of my car and pontificated on the state of Dutch politics and why the Netherlands would be better off outside the EU.
Five years on, this self-proclaimed intellectual is considered one of the most influential politicians in the country.Thierry Baudet sits behind a chessboard during a BBC interviewMr Baudet, 36, is known for bizarre headline-grabbing stunts such as taking part in a parliamentary debate wearing a dysfunctional military vest, to highlight underfunding of the armed forces.
His parliamentary office boasts an imposing Italian designer fridge and a baby grand piano, while the walls exhibit paintings of some of his political heroes.
The last time we met he tinkled the ivories and earnestly extrapolated on his view that women were less ambitious than men.Thierry Baudet taking part in a parliamentary debate wearing a dysfunctional military vest, to highlight underfunding of the armed forcesHe explained the "evidence'" that women prefer to read magazines about hair and make-up and have babies than concentrate on pursuing a career - and then sent me a photo of a book entitled Taking Sex Differences Seriously.
Buoyed by election success, this ambitious politician who sees himself as a champion of white culture is just getting started.
The Dutch prime minister told his supporters they were "going to have to get to work".
"We have to talk with other parties so we can continue to lead this country well," he said.
While most politicians halted their campaigns in the immediate aftermath of Monday's attack on a tram in Utrecht, Mr Baudet continued and blamed it on the government's immigration policies.
Three people were killed and three others seriously wounded and the chief suspect, Turkish born Gokmen Tanis, remains in custody.
On Wednesday, prosecutors said a letter found in the gunman's getaway car was among the reasons why a terrorist motive was being considered.
No connection has so far been found between Mr Tanis and the victims of the attack.
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Post by pieter on Mar 21, 2019 7:54:20 GMT -7
The left-right polarization takes place all over the West, in the USA, the United Kingdom, Poland, Hungary, Austria, France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Australia and yes also the Netherlands. This video is a perfect example of that tension between left and right. I don't agree with the undertitle of this video. I would describe it like this; Dutch MP Thierry Baudet of the rightwing Populist, Eurosceptic and National conservative Forum for Democracy takes part in a debate with university students, academics and the leftwing former leader of GreenLeft, Paul Rosenmöller, and tells his political vision on this university debate and targets left wing intellectuels, leftwing students and public media people in the audience and the organisation of the debate.
This is the opinion of the guy of this video. Not mine, but it shows the mindset of some followers of Thierry Baudet and Geert Wilders.
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Post by pieter on Mar 21, 2019 8:21:58 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Mar 21, 2019 9:02:11 GMT -7
Thierry BaudetThierry Baudet having dinner with Nigel Farage in De Balie, AmsterdamThierry Baudet loves Donald Trump, Victor Orban, Jarosław Kaczyński, Mateusz Morawiecki, Vladimir Putin, the conservative Chancellor of Austria Sebastian Kurz, the Vice-Chancellor of Austria Heinz-Christian Strache, who has also been Minister for the Civil Service and Sport since January 2018 and Chairman of the rightwing Populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) since April 2005 and ofcourse Baudet endorses Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) in Germany. Baudet also admires the French Nationalist and rightwing populist leader Marine Le Pen from Rassemblement national (formerly known as Front National), the Flemish nationalist (anti-Belgian) politicians Filip Dewinter and Tom Van Grieken from Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang. Vlaams belang wants an Independent Republic of Flanders, and thus a Flemish and Walloon republics instaid of Belgium) and Baudet is a competitor but not anti-Geert Wilders of the PVV (Freedom Party). You hardly ever see Forum voor Democratie and PVV politicians attacking each other. But both Forum voor Democratie and PVV politicians often attack leftwing, center left, centrist and center right politicians, ministers and the prime minister in parlaiment. Geert Wilders wants to cooperate with Forum voor Democratie, but Thierry Baudet focusses himself on building his Forum voor Democratie movement and political party, which gets a huge support amongst young voters (highschool students -18+-, vocational university students and rightwing university students, working young people, former PVV voters, former VVD voters, former SP -Socialist Party- voters, former Christian Democratic CDA voters and former non-voters). White Forum voor Democratie is a Fortyunist political party, Thierry Baudet wants to avoid mistakes the chaotic and internal stive ridden LPF political party of Pim Fortuyn made. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pim_Fortuyn_List ) Like Geert Wilders with his PVV also tried to avoid LPF circumstances before. Thierry Baudet on a meeting of the Flemish far right, Flemish Nationalist Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) in BelgiumFortuynismThierry Baudet is a supporter of the ideology, views, statements and philosophy of the murdered Dutch rightwing Populist Pim FortuynThe ideology or political style that is derived from Pim Fortuyn (19 February 1948 – 6 May 2002), and in turn the LPF, is often called Fortuynism. Observers variously saw him as a political protest targeting the alleged elitism and bureaucratic style of the Dutch purple coalitions or as offering an appealing political style. The style was characterized variously as one "of openness, directness and clearness", populism or simply as charisma. Another school holds Fortuynism as a distinct ideology, with an alternative vision of society. Some argued that Fortuynism was not just one ideology, but contained liberalism, populism and nationalism.
During the 2002 campaign, Fortuyn was accused of being on the "extreme right", although others saw only certain similarities. While he employed anti-immigration rhetoric, he was neither a radical nationalist nor a defender of traditional authoritarian values. On the contrary, Fortuyn wanted to protect the socio-culturally liberal values of the Netherlands, women's rights and sexual minorities, from the (in his point of view) "backward" Islamic culture. The LPF also won support from some ethnic minorities; one of Fortuyn's closest associates was of Cape Verdean origin, and one of the party's MPs was a young woman of Turkish descent.
Baudet is a eurosceptic and opposed to multiculturalism. Baudet is an advocate for a return to nation states. In 2014 he gave a speech at the Flemish nationalist event IJzerwake. He also spoke at several Vlaams Belang conferences. Baudet has stated that his conservative political convictions have been largely influenced by two events in his first year as a history undergraduate in Amsterdam: the September 11 attacks and the assassination of Pim Fortuyn.Both voters of Geert Wilders Freedom Party and Thierry Baudet's Forum for Democracy are former Pim Fortuyn supporters and voters for his LPF party in May 2002. Thierry Baudet with the rightwing British polemicist, political commentator, public speaker and writer Milo YiannopoulosBaudet used to have a newspaper column in NRC Handelsblad, and was published in Le Monde, PressEurope and European Ideas. As an academic teacher and researcher Baudet focuses on questions of law, history and political philosophy through a multidisciplinary approach. Baudet has called himself "the most important intellectual of the Netherlands".Political positions and opinionsBaudet is a national conservative and eurosceptic, advocating for both Netherlands' exit from the European Union and its eventual dissolution. He is against further unskilled immigration into the Netherlands. In a speech he spoke about immigration causing a homeopathic dilution and in an interview he said he prefers a dominant white and cultural Europe as it is. He is opposed to Ukraine joining the European Union. Forum for Democracy set up the Dutch Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement referendum, 2016 with the GeenStijl website and the Burgercomité EU association, in which Baudet voted no. In November 2016 Baudet co-signed a letter initiated by the German journalist Billy Six which requested Donald Trump to press for a new investigation regarding Flight MH17.
Baudet has a strong opinion on arts, the topic of his book Oikofobie, and considers non-Western art and Western post-1900 modernism in visual arts inferior to Western Realism, encourages education and programmation of tonal music opposed to atonal music and dislikes modern post-1950 architecture. In reaction to this, Musicologist Yuri Landman warned Baudet for approaching the concept of degenerate art with his conservative criticism.
Baudet frequently speaks about the perceived existence of a "party cartel", in which the main ruling parties of the country divide power among themselves and conspire towards the same goals, despite claiming to be competitors. Baudet is not religious, but he is sympathetic with Christian values. In an interview, he called himself an "agnostic cultural Christian."
In February 2018 Baudet was confronted with the question whether there is a relation between IQ and race in a debate with Femke Halsema. Hiddema and the number two on Baudet's party list for the Dutch municipal elections, 2018 in Amsterdam, Yernaz Ramautarsing, stated they believed it to be true while Baudet refused to answer the question. Deputy Prime Minister Kajsa Ollongren stated that Forum for Democracy is a bigger threat than the Party for Freedom and that members have an unhealthy fascination for race differences; Baudet made a complaint for defamation at an Amsterdam police station. Hiddema supported him as his advocate. In a debate a few days later, he no longer refused to answer the question and mentioned he shares Ramautarsing's opinion on the subject.
Baudet has been in close contact with Theodore Dalrymple, wrote his PhD-thesis with Roger Scruton and Paul Cliteur and frequently visited Douglas Murray, Jeremy Rabkin and Alain Finkielkraut. He has also had contact with Jared Taylor, Milo Yiannopoulos, Jean-Marie Le Pen and Filip Dewinter, sparking accusations of "far right" or "racist" sympathies. In response, Baudet states that he and the Forum for Democracy "stand for an open, tolerant and democratic Netherlands where people are judged by their individual qualities; not by their social class, color of skin, race, or sexual preference." Baudet emphasises that it is his duty as a politician to speak with people on all sides of the political spectrum, "from left to right, from mainstream to less mainstream."Thierry Baudet with Henk Otten, the strong man behind the well know Forum for Democracy politicians Thierry Baudet and Theo Hiddema. Henk Otten Henk Otten foundet Forum for Democracy as a rightwing thinktank with Thierry Baudet. Otten studied economics and law in Groningen. After his training he became a trainee lawyer with Loeff Claeys Verbeke. Otten stopped his internship in 1995 and started working for Rabobank in Hong Kong. From 1999 to 2002 he worked at Lehman Brothers in London. Otten continued his career by founding Ms2 Capital. After the murder of Pim Fortuyn, he was a member of LPF for a short time.
In 2015, Otten and Thierry Baudet, among others, founded the Forum for Democracy, then still as a think tank - later this became a political party. For the party, Otten was the treasurer on the board and employee of the two-member parliamentary party. For Forum for Democracy, he became a leader in the First Chamber elections of 2019.ConflictIn February 2018, insurgent members demanded Otten's departure because, according to them, he led the party apparatus dictatorially. They wanted more internal democracy. Baudet, however, opted for Otten in this conflict, which he believed was invaluable to the party.
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Post by pieter on Mar 21, 2019 9:43:09 GMT -7
Thierry Baudet with English writer and retired prison doctor and psychiatrist Theodore DalrympleIn his writing, Anthony Malcolm Daniels (his pen name is Theodore Dalrymple) frequently argues that the socially liberal and progressive views prevalent within Western intellectual circles minimise the responsibility of individuals for their own actions and undermine traditional mores, contributing to the formation within prosperous countries of an underclass afflicted by endemic violence, criminality, sexually transmitted diseases, welfare dependency, and drug abuse. Much of Dalrymple's writing is based on his experience of working with criminals and the mentally ill.Thierry Baudet with the conservative English philosopher and writer Roger ScrutonSir Roger Vernon Scruton FBA FRSL (/ˈskruːtən/; born 27 February 1944) is an English philosopher and writer who specialises in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of traditionalist conservative views.
Editor from 1982 to 2001 of The Salisbury Review, a conservative political journal, Scruton has written over 50 books on philosophy, art, music, politics, literature, culture, sexuality, and religion; he has also written novels and two operas. His most notable publications include The Meaning of Conservatism (1980), Sexual Desire (1986), The Aesthetics of Music (1997), and How to Be a Conservative (2014). He has been a regular contributor to the popular media, including The Times, The Spectator, and the New Statesman.
Scruton embraced conservatism after witnessing the May 1968 student protests in France. From 1971 to 1992 he was a lecturer and professor of aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London, after which he held several part-time academic positions at the University of Oxford, the University of St Andrews, as well as the position of Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in the United States. He became known in the 1980s for helping to establish underground academic networks in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe, for which he was awarded the Czech Republic's Medal of Merit (First Class) by President Václav Havel in 1998.
Scruton was knighted in the 2016 Birthday Honours for "services to philosophy, teaching and public education".Thierry Baudet with French philosopher and public intellectual Alain FinkielkrautAlain Finkielkraut (French pronunciation: [alɛ̃ finkɛlkʁot]; born 30 June 1949) is a French philosopher and public intellectual. He has written books and essays on a wide range of topics, many on the ideas of tradition and identitary nonviolence, including Jewish identity and antisemitism, French colonialism, the mission of the French education system in immigrant assimilation, and the Yugoslav Wars.
He joined the Department of French Literature in the University of California, Berkeley as an assistant professor in 1976, and from 1989 to 2014 he was professor of History of Ideas in the École Polytechnique department of humanities and social sciences.
He was elected member of the Académie française (Seat 21) on 10 April 2014.[2] He often appears in France on talk shows.
As a thinker, Finkielkraut defines himself as being "at the same time classical and romantic". Finkielkraut deplores what he sees as the deterioration of Western tradition through multiculturalism and relativism.
In 2010, he was involved in founding JCall, a left-wing Zionist advocacy group based in Europe to lobby the European Parliament on foreign policy issues concerning the Middle East. He is a strong supporter of Israel and the two-state solution.
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Post by pieter on Mar 21, 2019 9:49:18 GMT -7
It is clear that the political landscape in Europe is changing and political parties as the Hungarian Fidesz, the Austrian FPÖ (Freedom Party), the Polish Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, the German Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) and the Dutch political parties PVV and Forum for Democracy are part of our democratic systems and in our parlaiments and governments (in the Polish, Hungarian and Austrian cases).
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Post by pieter on Mar 21, 2019 10:27:43 GMT -7
Thierry Baudet and Geert Wilders in the Tweede Kamer (Second Chaimber), the Dutch parliamentGeert Wilders, Labour leader Lodewijk Asscher and Thierry Baudet during the Climate change debate in the Dutch parliament
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Post by pieter on Mar 21, 2019 13:35:52 GMT -7
This is what the voters on Forum for Democracy on wednesday voted during the 2017 Dutch general election.If you look at the figures you see that 30% of the Forum for Democracy voters came from Geert Wilders Freedom Party (PVV), 16% from the largest government coalition party, conservative liberal VVD, 10% from then Christian Democratic CDA, 6% from the Socialist Party (SP), 6% from the Party of Elders (50Plus), 4% from people who didn't vote in 2017, 3% from the centrist social liberal D66 party, 1% from the leftist GreenLeft and 1% from the Social Democratic Labour Party (PvdA) and 1% from other political parties. Only 16% of the present voters voted for Forum for Democracy during that 2017 Dutch general election.
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Post by pieter on Mar 21, 2019 13:44:51 GMT -7
I am curious how much Dutch voters will vote for Forum for Democracy during the next Dutch general elections of 17 March 2021. Will Forum for Democracy grow, or will Geert Wilders Freedom Party (PVV) come back? Will the Forum for Democracy and Geert Wilders Freedom Party (PVV) cooperate or be fierce competitors? How will the migrant political party Denk (Think) do in 2021? Will there be new parties and will old center left and center right political parties restore themselves, gain strength and grow again and become as large as they were in the past (seventies, eighties, nineties)?
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Post by karl on Mar 21, 2019 15:27:12 GMT -7
Pieter
In appearances, Mr. Thierry Baudet has a different agenda in border controls and upgrading the military then that was of Mr. Ruttes former policies. Time will tell of course and the situation matures. In as of Mr. Geert Wilders, he is a loose cannon, who knows who or what will light his fuse.
It should be interesting with what the future shall present to the good People of the Netherlands.
Karl
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Post by Jaga on Mar 22, 2019 5:31:09 GMT -7
Pieter, thank you for presenting Dutch election and its winners to us. It is a bit disturbing. Probably the right wing gained some extra late support from the shooting which happened a couple of days ago
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