The Weekly Forum - 21 March 2026
23 maart 2026 | Forum for Democracy Intl
Forum for Democracy had spectacular success at the local elections held in the Netherlands on 18 March. FVD won some 300 seats in local councils, up from 54 after the last elections in 2022. It won seats in every single one of the 104 municipalities where it put up candidates (out of 342 municipalities in the whole country). This is an increase of nearly 250 seats with respect to the previous elections, which makes FVD by far the biggest winner: the second best result was that of the liberal-centrist establishment People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), which increased its score by only 65 seats. It is true that this VVD, like the other establishment parties Democrats 66, Christian Democrat Appeal (CDA) and the Green-Labour party (GL-PvdA), have about a thousand council seats each across the country but this result makes FVD the fourth largest national party at municipal level, way ahead of Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party which now has only 100 or so local councillors.
It is mystifying that people continue to vote for parties like the VVD. They have been in power without interruption for over a decade and a half, yet during those years the country has gone to the dogs. They win by tricking people. Every time, they say they want lower immigration and fewer asylum seekers. Yet millions of migrants have settled in the Netherlands under their watch since 2010. Worse, they claim to be against immigration but in fact water down anti-immigration legislation at EU level whenever they can. Naturally, only FVD notices this and calls them out.
Read Tom Russcher’s article here
Tom has been on the trail of an influential Islamic NGO in the Netherlands which, it turns out, is under the heavy influence of the Turkish government via the religious attaché at the Turkish embassy in The Hague. The diplomat is often at the NGO’s offices and accompanies it on trips. He appears to be its de facto leader. Yet the NGO, which also receives subsidies from the Dutch government, says it is independent. Turkey is a secular state but it has a government department, the famous Diyanet, which essentially controls Islam in the country. In other words, the link to a foreign power is very real and direct. One wonders how widespread this influence is across Europe – in an EU which only ever complains about Russian interference, real or imagined, but which never mentions the American, Israeli or, in this case, Turkish role in national politics.
FVD is sponsoring a pan-European cultural-political initiative organised by a German friend and under the patronage of Leo Hohenberg, the great-grandson of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination triggered the First World War. Apart from his historic lineage, Prince Leo is a lucid analyst of the ills which beset our world. Stefan Korte, the organiser of the initiative, is convinced that Europe’s ills must be attacked at their cultural and civilisational root - which is more or less exactly what FVD’s leader, Thierry Baudet, has been saying for years. The initiative’s first conference will take place in Vienna in April. If you want to attend, sign up here.