Excerpt:
For Geert Wilders the 2018 local elections were an attempt to expand his party’s reach, but despite ending the night with 76 councillors the gains were less than he had hoped for. The PVV finished no higher than third in any of the 30 municipalities where it was standing – including Almere, where it has headed the coalition for the last four years. There its number of councillors was reduced from six to three as it fell behind the VVD and Labour (PvdA).
In The Hague, where the party was beset by infighting during the campaign, the PVV lost five of its seven council seats to finish in ninth place, just behind the Animal Rights Party (PvdD). It was a far cry from four years ago, when Wilders narrowly lost out to D66 in the race to run the council and delivered the ‘Fewer Moroccans’ speech that resulted in a criminal conviction for inciting discrimination.