Word: fortuyn
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Dates: during 2002-2002
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...Fortuyn's meteoric rise in just nine months on an anti-immigration platform had dealt a telling blow to the pragmatic consensus seeking that has long defined Dutch politics. His murder appears to have destroyed it altogether, leaving the country without its moorings as it approaches the most emotional and uncertain election in its history this week. Polls before his death predicted that Fortuyn would attract about 17% of the vote, enough to make him a major player in forming a new government. He is widely expected to do much better than that as the martyred head of his electoral...
...Fortuyn, 54, was a man for confrontation, not consensus. He wanted to re-establish Dutch border controls and let in refugees only from Britain, Denmark, France and Germany. He sought to dial back the generous disability scheme that supports the roughly 15% of Dutch workers who claim they can't work for medical reasons. At least a quarter of the state bureaucracy should be laid off, Fortuyn maintained, while at the same time the number of regional governments should be doubled and schools made smaller. A Fortuyn government would not only reintroduce the draft, but also mandate a special four...
...Fortuyn had laid out some of that political smorgasbord last Monday afternoon at a Hilversum radio studio, where he also predicted he would live to the ripe age of 86. As he left the studio, a gunman approached him in the parking lot and fired five shots, hitting the candidate in the head, chest and neck. He died soon after...
...Fortuyn's alleged assassin appears to be a political animal of a very different sort. Volkert van der Graaf, 32, who was arrested immediately after the shooting and arraigned on Wednesday, is an animal-rights activist and long-term member of an environmental group that legally challenges farmers who seek to expand their operations. A principled vegan who once told an interviewer he couldn't abide the cruelty of baiting a fishhook, Van der Graaf lived in the small town of Harderwijk with his wife and three-month-old baby. "He was not given to jokes or eccentricities," says Caroline...
...Graaf, who is expected to face a murder charge, has not cooperated with prosecutors, leaving his motive unclear. While farm policy was not a central issue for Fortuyn, he is reported to have once said he would lift a current ban on mink farming. Prosecutors on Friday said they had located the names of three other Fortuyn List candidates and maps of their neighborhoods in Van der Graaf's car, and were investigating a videotape that showed the suspect conferring with two others in a city where Fortuyn was speaking earlier on the day of his murder. They are also...