Wilders cancels yet another election TV appearance
Geert Wilders has pulled out of a TV interview with late night news show Nieuwsuur because he ‘doesn’t like it’.
It is the latest walkout by the PVV leader, who was absent from last night’s television debate on RTL4 and the Radio 1 leaders’ debate on Friday. Wilders has also declined the regional TV debate on March 11 and withdrew from the March 5 debate in Amsterdam’s Carré theatre in protest after RTL Nieuws, one of the organisers, broadcast an interview with his brother, Paul.
Wilders cancelled all public engagements last week after it emerged that a member of his security team had connections with Moroccan gangsters. However, a spokesman said that the decision not to appear on Nieuwsuur was not security-related.
Wilders had decided ‘only to do things we like, and this isn’t something we like,’ the party spokesman explained. Nieuwsuur has been running individual interviews with all party leaders in Parliament in the two weeks running up to the election on March 15.
Programme editor Joost Oranje said: ‘We’re running the rule over 13 parties and it’s a real shame if one of those parties declines because they “don’t like it”.’
Wilders is still due to take part in a head-to-head debate with Rutte in EenVandaag on March 13 and the final leaders’ debate on NOS the following night.
Prime minister Mark Rutte said on Monday that there was no increased threat to Wilders’s safety and his decision to cancel public events was down to him alone. ‘If he wants to, we’ll make sure he can,’ Rutte told NOS.
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