Wilders' winning ways in Dutch polls

Reuters:

Dutch anti-Islamist leader Geert Wilders scored major gains in local authority polls Thursday, making him a serious challenger for power in a June national election, preliminary results showed.

In the first test of public opinion since the collapse of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's coalition government last month, Wilders's Freedom Party (PVV) led in the city of Almere and was second in The Hague.

The results came on top of an opinion poll showing that the PVV, which campaigns against Muslim immigration as its main platform, would win the most seats -- 27 in the 150-member Dutch parliament -- in the June 9 election.

That would make it tough for Balkenende's Christian Democrats, projected to win one seat less, to forge a strong coalition without Wilders. Months of talks between parties, and the resulting policy vacuum, could threaten a fragile economic recovery and cast doubt on the scope of planned budget cuts.

The popularity of Wilders, who compares Islam to fascism and the Koran to Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf," has dented the image of the Netherlands as a country that has often portrayed itself in the past as a bastion of tolerance.

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The main problem with Islam is that too many of its followers are intolerant of those who do not agree with their weird religious beliefs. It is the Islamic religious bigots who are responsible for terrorism and not those who oppose them. They are most intolerant of people who stand up to them like Wilders. They keep making his case for him. In fact if you watch his "controversial" film, you find that he is mostly quoting them and the Koran to make his points.

The intolerance toward his views has resulted in a criminal case against him. Now that is what I call intolerance.