In Pim’s Shadow

Success in populist politics depends on the party leader’s jugular instinct for voter discontent. But can a populist party succeed without its leader?

That’s the dilemma facing List Pim Fortuyn (LPF), the second-largest party in the Dutch government, which formally presented its legislative program last week. Pim Fortuyn, the party’s charismatic founder, shattered the comfortable consensus of Dutch politics with his critique of the mainstream parties and his tough talk on immigration. Since he was slain just days before last May’s election, the LPF has been trying to plumb a line through rough leadership battles, public-relations snafus and tough coalition talks by divining “what Pim would have wanted.” Party leader Harry Wijnschenk has only to switch on his mobile phone to be reminded of that: the words “Remember Pim” flash automatically across his screen.

Given what an ethereal touchstone that is for actual policies, the LPF hasn’t done too badly. Fortuyn’s presence can still be felt in the ambitious and controversial legislative program the government laid out. A far harder line on immigration, a tamping down of perceived bureaucratic excess, a general call to belt tightening in the face of the economic downturn — all that pretty much jibes with what Fortuyn was advocating during the campaign.

But now that message has to be carried forward by a group of political neophytes who are lined up against far more savvy coalition partners and political opponents. “Compare them to a normal political party and you do get a picture of headless chickens,” says Peter Mair, professor of comparative politics at the University of Leiden. “But actually they’ve been remarkably coherent in pushing for their policies.”

In part that’s because the Fortuynites were essentially preaching to the choir. Both coalition partners — the Christian Democratic cda of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and the liberal VVD — would have had to be blind to miss the “Just say no to the status quo” message of last May’s vote. Even Fortuyn’s bitterest opponents acknowledged — especially after his death — that he’d latched on to real disenchantment.

Nowhere is this harsher approach more evident than in the treatment of foreigners, and it is by no means just the LPF advocating it. Rotterdam’s mayor, Ivo Opstelten of the VVD, has cracked down particularly hard in the blighted western part of his city, where many housing projects are inhabited solely by immigrant families. There police can search people without restriction; drug addicts from elsewhere found cruising the neighborhood can be arrested and forced into detox programs. “In a city where 43% of the population is not of Dutch origin, it’s especially important that the rules for noncitizens be clear and enforceable,” says Opstelten.

For city councilor Michiel Smit, 26, a member of Livable Rotterdam, another party Fortuyn once headed, those programs don’t go far enough. Smit particularly likes the idea of deporting criminal offenders of Turkish or Moroccan origin, even if they were born in the Netherlands and have Dutch passports. “We grant nationality too easily,” he says. “We should make it easier to take it away.”

The idea offends Ali Aslan, 24, a Rotterdam-born steelworker whose father came from Turkey 35 years ago to work. “If you break the law, you should be punished,” he says. “But send me back to my own country? That’s Holland, whether they like it or not.” So far a proposal for such expulsions from the new LPF Minister for Immigration and Integration Hilbrand Nawijn has been roundly rejected by his coalition partners.

Robert Roks, the principal of a special school for foreign-born children in Rotterdam’s Spangen neighborhood, will likely feel the sting of any tougher government line. Every year, the city takes in 1,000 new pupils from abroad; those who do badly on a state-administered intelligence test — from Namibian child soldiers and destitute Angolese to poor kids from the mountains of Morocco — come to Roks’ school. But the Fortuyn effect has already almost halved the rate of asylum seekers entering the Netherlands from last year’s total of nearly 33,000. Since his budget comes from state allocations that can range as high as ?10,000 per student, Roks is already thinking about how the school will support itself in the harsher environment. “We don’t have high achievers here,” he says. “But without this school, there would be a lot more criminals on the streets.”

The new mood troubles Mamdouh Baridi, a 24-year-old student born in Rotterdam of Moroccan parents. “The price of Dutch tolerance was patience, and their patience has run out,” he says. Baridi has started an initiative called “Are You Afraid of Me?” to counter misunderstanding, but he thinks the gulf between cultures is deeper than even many liberal Dutch believe. “Holland has never been multicultural — it’s multiculinary,” he says. “They’ll eat our food, but they want us to act like Dutch people.” But Baridi says he isn’t really worried. “The Dutch are more interested in economic stability than ethnic politics, and they’ll realize they need foreigners to keep the economy going.”

Perhaps. But for now the government wants the Dutch to realize they have for too long been living beyond their means. Tensions within the coalition are as likely to surface over the new austerity budget as over the immigration issue. The government wants to throttle back wage hikes even as the cost of living rises.

Lean years are usually good for populist parties — as long as they’re not in power. But the LPF has already seen its support crumble now that it has embarked on the parlous business of coalition government. The challenge for the LPF, and the government that needs its support, will be to convince voters that they still have a live bead on their real concerns. And they’ll have to do that without Pim.