Independent MP Geert Wilders on Friday presented sixteen "ordinary men and women with guts" as the Lower House candidates of his new Party for Freedom

Geert Wilders - PVV Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom): "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

NIS News Bulletin AMSTERDAM, Saturday - Independent MP Geert Wilders on Friday presented sixteen "ordinary men and women with guts" as the Lower House candidates of his new Party for Freedom. "They are not ignorant bureaucrats but all people from society".


Wilders' candidates include retired General Peter Paul Sonnenschein, public prosecutor at the Amsterdam appeal court Raymond de Roon, Amsterdam police inspector Hero Brinkman, Liveable Rotterdam councillor Barry Madlener and Sietse Fritsma, a staff member of the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND).

Wilders, who is aiming for 10 Lower House seats, will announce in September the ranking order of the sixteen on his list of candidates for the 22 November elections. The second place, immediately behind Wilders, is however going to 29-year-old Fleur Agema. She is a member of the Noord-Holland provincial council and left the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) in 2004.

Wilders also presented his election manifesto Friday. He wants to struggle for a "decent Netherlands". Teachers should be called 'mister' again "rather than Jan or Harry", prisons should no longer be "more luxurious than elderly homes" and "Moroccan street terrorists must be expelled from the country if necessary".

The Party for Freedom is seeking to reduce crime by punishing people with a life sentence if they commit three violent crimes. Wilders also wants to close down all 'coffee shops', as the tolerated Dutch cannabis bars are known. Wilders is also seeking a referendum on the euro and substantial pruning of development aid and contributions to the EU.

Other proposals include lower taxes, more teachers and smaller classes, a smaller public sector, a five-year moratorium on the construction of mosques and the influx of non-Western immigrants, a ceiling on the influx of asylum-seekers (5,000 per year) and forcing children born from Moroccan parents to choose either a Dutch or Moroccan passport, as they now receive both.