Netherlands: Election round-up
01 January 1991
NETHERLANDS
Election round-up
Immigration - a key issue
Immigration and the welfare state were key issues in the general
elections with voters, according to the Independent, blaming
immigrants for the dismantling of the welfare state. The outgoing
prime minister, Rund Lubbers, said, in the run-up to the
election, `immigrants cannot merely expect to be looked after,
they are going to have to go and look for work'. Another leading
Christian Democrat, Elco Brinkman, has suggested that social
integration would be helped by the `bussing' of immigrant
children (Independent 30.4.94).
TV programme dents far-Right image
The Dutch general election saw the far-Right Centrum Demokraten
increase its seats in parliament from one to three. It was not
the result feared by many after the CD's impressive gains in the
March local elections. A TV programme, showing two prominent CD
members boasting about arson attacks on migrant workers,
influenced prospective voters away from the far-Right party. A
television team spent many months infiltrating a reporter into
the CD's Amsterdam group. The programme showed CD councillors
chatting in bars about how they would like to draft a programme
as influential as Mein Kampf. Leading CD member, Yol Gramen was
filmed boasting of his responsibility for seven arson attacks,
one on a Surinamese community centre in 1977 and another on a
reception centre for Surinamese drug addicts in 1979. Gramen also
claimed responsibility for a serious physical assault on
immigrant workers in 1980 (NN 28.4.94).
CD councillors claim intimidation
Many recently elected CD councillors have resigned their seats
claiming intimidation, including six (out of a total of seven)
councillors from Breda. A CD councillor in the Hague says that
he was forced to resign after receiving threatening phone calls
criticising his attitude toward homosexuals.Two CD councillor's
from Leiden have resigned their seats, including the head of the
CD group who resigned claiming his family had been threatened and
the windows of his home smashed. Controversy surrounds Leiden
council's decision to simply offer one of the vacant seats to
another CD member, rather than call a by-election (NN 28.4.94).
Failure to prosecute far-Right exposed
The Anti-Discrimination Bureau in Haarlem has criticised the
Dutch prosecution authority, the `Openbaar Miniserie' (OM) for
its handling of a case against the far-Right CP86. In July 1993,
the Anti-Discrimination Bureau passed on to the authorities
articles in the CP86 newspaper `Centrumniews' which attacked the
right of black people to live in Holland. In November 1993, the
OM informed the ADB of its decision not to prosecute. But when
the ADB attempted to get written confirmation of this decision
in order to launch an appeal, the ministry informed them that
they had lost the relevant documents, and that the documents had
never been allocated a case number. Anti-racists also point out
that similar incompetence led to a charge of incitement to racial
hatred against CD leader Hans Janmaat that took four years to
investigate being thrown out of court in the course of one
afternoon (NN 28.4.94).
IRR European Race Audit no 9, July 1994. Contact: Liz Fekete
Institute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London WC1X 9HS
Tel: 071 837 0041