Controversial PVV candidate re-appears, this time on senate list

Gidi Markuszower, who withdrew his candidacy for the anti-Islam PVV during the 2010 general election, is on the party’s list of candidates for the senate, Dutch media report on Tuesday.

Markuszower pulled out in 2010 after the security service AIVD sent party leader Geert Wilders a report into his background.

In the letter, Markuszower was described as ‘a risk for the integrity of the Netherlands’ and was said to have supplied information to a ‘foreign power’ and had contact with a foreign security service, the NRC reported as the time.

Sources said at the time the letter was referring to Israel and Mossad. Markuszower was also active for the Dutch branch of Israeli political party Likud.

It also emerged he had been arrested for carrying a gun while a member of a Jewish security group. Markuszower said at the time there is no evidence for the claims made against him.

He has now reappeared at number five on the PVV list of senate candidates. The party is expected to take nine seats when provincial councillors vote for the 75 senators in May.

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