Wouter Bos, the leader of the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA), the Dutch Labour Party, is worried about the high number of immigrants in the ranks of his own party. Bos won the Dutch municipal elections on 7 March by catering for the immigrants, who consequently tipped the balance in favour of the PvdA. Almost half the elected PvdA politicians in major Dutch cities where the PvdA is the largest party, such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam, are now Muslims.
In an interview last Friday Wouter Bos said that he is worried about this situation. “We are bound to run into trouble with our new immigrant councillors,” he predicted. The PvdA leader said their “political culture” is often incompatible with Dutch politics, because the immigrants “conduct politics according to the culture of their home countries, where clientelism is the norm.”
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