Excerpt:
The Netherlands is considered a left-liberal country, but in reality it is evenly divided between left and right. The elections of June 9 indicate a slight tilt to the right, which in itself is not a dramatic event: on many occasions in the past the right had a small majority. But media outlets are reporting the outcome of the elections as a huge change in Dutch society.
It is not. It changed ten years ago.
The unrest among Dutch voters has been visible since the rise of Pim Fortuyn, the amazing Dutch politician who was killed in 2002 by a radical leftist animal-rights activist. A couple of the main issues in the Netherlands (or Holland — the name Holland is used for only the two most western provinces of this small country) had been neglected by the traditional political parties, and Pim Fortuyn was the intellectual, emotional, and theatrical politician who was able to bring these two issues — immigration and the future of the welfare state — to the forefront of the political debate.