1. Success and Failure on the Populist Right: The Case of Wilders and Verdonk<br />Research Proposal<br />Matthijs van Tuijl<br />0850845<br />Master Thesis Political Behaviour and Communication<br />Leiden University<br />18-03-2011<br />Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Galen Irwin<br />Second reader: Dr. H. Pelikaan<br />Word count: 6533<br />‘I want to be Prime-Minister’ was Rita Verdonk’s claim on October 18 2007, when she founded her movement Trots op Nederland (TON, Proud of the Netherlands). At that point in time that was not an unrealistic claim, with the opinion polls having her at 25 seats. Geert Wilders with his Partij Voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Freedom Party), lost half of his support in the polls to Verdonk when she announced her new party. However, on June 9 2010, the day of the Dutch General election, Wilders managed to secure 24 seats and Verdonk was voted out completely by the people. How is it possible that Rita Verdonk could not win any seats in the end and that Geert Wilders showed a significant growth? <br />That there was a potential for Verdonk to be successful was clear prior to the general election in 2006, when she was involved in a fierce battle for the leadership of the Liberal party (VVD) with now Prime-Minister Mark Rutte. She just lost the leadership, but did manage to get more votes at the parliamentary election than Rutte. With 620,555 votes, she received almost 100,000 votes more than her party leader. Verdonk was forced to leave the VVD after an internal dispute, with the leadership contest, in practice, still going on after the elections. When she left, as figure 1 shows, she remained popular and was therefore for a while seen as a serious force within Dutch politics. Geert Wilders, himself also a former VVD MP, having left the party a few years earlier, enjoyed growing support after the elections until Verdonk founded her new movement. At that point in time there were two new right wing parties looking for the favour of the Dutch voter, only one was capable of claiming victory in the end. <br />Verdonk and Wilders have often been called populists, due to their approach to politics (Lucardie 2007; Vossen 2010). While the reasons behind the political success of populist parties have been studied in detail, focusing on elements as political leadership (or charisma), protest voting and issue preferences (Eatwell 2005; Van der Brug and Mughan 2007), there is still no definite answer on how they manage to succeed and what elements are most important. While there are many examples in Western Europe of populist parties effectively claiming an influential position within their countries’ politics, the parties that do not make it have received less attention. <br />What is interesting about the movements of Rita Verdonk and Geert Wilders, as figure 1 shows, is that it was not just success or only failure. There were many ups and downs in popularity in the years between elections. What happened during these years? Why did Verdonk not make it in the end while Wilders did will therefore be the puzzle of this thesis. The findings of this study could contribute to a better understanding of the development of populist parties in general. What explains the differences in electoral outcome for them? It leads to the research question of this study.<br />What explains the success of the PVV and the failure of Trots op Nederland in the period 2006-2010?<br />Theory<br />In order to find an answer to the research question it is first necessary to look at what these parties or movements actually are. It is claimed that Wilders and Verdonk are populists, but what that is still remains somewhat ambiguous. Even though it is not the focus of this study to define populism, it is important to know what we are actually dealing with. When that definition is more clear, characteristics of the PVV and TON can be compared to that to see if they fit the picture. If they can be qualified as populist parties, there is a possibility to look at explanations for success and failure of populist parties and test these for Verdonk and Wilders.<br />Populism<br />In Europe there has been a growing number of right wing populist parties entering the arena and successfully claiming a position in national parliaments. According to some, the de-alignment process that has taken place across Europe, has led to the rise of these new parties, focusing more on party leaders and less on a fixed ideology (Dalton et al., 2002: 22, 31-32). The FPÖ in Austria and the Danish People’s Party are just two examples of parties that even managed to participate, in some form, in their countries’ government. <br />Populism is a concept that is not that easy to define. It is a concept that has many features and is has developed over time. In his study on populism, Paul Taggart (2000) describes this process and defines modern populism as the New Populism, which has its roots in Western Europe. He sees it as a movement of multiple parties across countries with some defining characteristics. First of all, it is a reaction to bureaucratised welfare states and corruption within the existing political parties. Secondly these parties reconstruct politics around a key issue, either taxation, immigration and nationalism or regionalism. Thirdly, they organise themselves differently from existing parties, as a result of distrust of political institutions. Party membership is only active and direct in the form of elected officials and personalised leadership is prevalent. Fourth, they like to establish a link between the people and themselves and place themselves outside the centre of the political spectrum (Taggart, 2000: 75). <br />Canovan explains this link to the people more clearly by distinguishing between three different types: the united people (as in a nation), our people (in an ethnic sense) and the ordinary people (against the privileged) (Canovan, 1999: 5). These separate types make the faces of populism more clear. It can focus on a certain ethnic group and be an excluding factor or it can rebel against the elite and be the voice of the common man. The elite is seen as corrupt and going against the general will. Cas Mudde considers that to be the centre piece of populism, the restoration of the will of the people in a country. In that way, populism is a very moralistic ‘ideology’ (Mudde, 2004: 543-544). In this view, the common man is no longer in power, the elite is and that is de facto a bad thing. Populist parties are there to restore popular control over a nation. <br />The important thing to realise from the New Populism of Taggart is that these parties are effectively trying to find a niche in politics based on dissatisfaction with modern politics. They see politics as no longer representing the people and try to re-establish that link with them by focusing on issues that appeal to certain groups in society. As Taggart explains, the people are here portrayed as a unity within a heartland. That heartland can best be seen as an imaginary place that emphasises all the good and virtuous aspects of life. It is however not all inclusive. It is to a large extent based on nationalism of an ‘organic community’, excluding certain groups in society (Taggart, 2000: 95, 97). Related to this is the creation of conspiracy theories. The elite conspires together, no longer protects the heartland and something should be done about it. This is argued to be a major factor to mobilise support (Ibid.: 105).<br /> Leadership is also a defining feature of populist parties. With populist parties there can be two types of leadership. The more common is the type based on charisma, centred around leaders with a large popular appeal. When, however, this is not present, it is argued that in that case it tends to be authoritarian (Ibid.: 103). The result of this leadership is the creation of a populist mood. The idea is that something needs to change fundamentally and the country needs to be reshaped. This mood has the power to encourage otherwise non active citizens to participate in politics and to get out and vote (Canovan, 1999: 6). <br />Interesting points are raised by Mudde in clarifying some basic elements of populism, related to democracy and leadership. As he argues, when it comes to democracy, populist parties want responsive government not necessarily direct democracy. They want the outcome to be representative of the will of the people, but those people do not have to participate directly, as long as they are heard. On the point of leadership, he says that the people want their leaders to be in touch, but not be one of them (Mudde, 2004: 558-559). This marks some interesting aspects of populist parties and can explain the apparent paradox of authoritarian leadership and listening to the will of the people. That will needs to be represented by the political leaders, but the people should not take over from them. Other scholars present a somewhat different picture and argue that populist parties will demand more direct democracy. Democracy should in that view be seen as an ideal that includes ‘referenda, popular consultation and direct elections of office- holders (Keman and Krouwel, 2007: 25). <br />Wilders and Verdonk as Populists<br />In order to analyse the success and failure of populist parties in the case of Wilders and Verdonk, it is important to establish what kind of characteristics they share with this populist image just sketched. If they are populist leaders, then it becomes possible to test explanations of success and failure of populism for them. If they differ from the ideal populist picture, then this can be taken in account when conducting this study. <br /> Koen Vossen, comparing Wilders and Verdonk in terms of populist tendencies, has distinguished seven features of populism comparable to the points mentioned above (see table 1) . Some of them, the ‘folksy style’ and ‘voluntarist approach’ are somewhat similar to other points. The folksy style more or less relates to how politicians act, being one of the people, speaking the same language. The voluntarist approach relates to politics not having to be as complex, the peoples’ qualities are enough to govern (Vossen, 2010: 25). These two points clearly focus on the incompetent elite in comparison to the people. It again stresses the fact that the political organisation has become filled with an unnecessary bureaucracy that needs to be fixed. The voluntarist approach also moves away from a politician as a professional. The common man should be represented and therefore there is no need for professionals. <br />(Vossen, 2010: 34)<br />Wilders<br />As shown in table 1, Vossen has some doubts about the basic idea of Geert Wilders as a populist in the traditional sense. He calls Wilders a half-hearted populist, mainly because he is a professional politician and he does not glorifying the people to the extent that a true populist would do. Instead Wilders also criticizes the people on occasions (Vossen, 2010: 30). The interesting thing about this is that Wilders is a former MP for the VVD, as is Rita Verdonk, but in contrast to her, he spent quite some more time in the political circle. He had been active for the parliamentary party since 1990, working as a policy advisor. Known as a hard worker, Wilders lived politics. This is illustrated by the fact that when he was forced to leave parliament after the 2002 elections, he was devastated, having no alternative for politics whatsoever (Fennema, 2010: 66). Wilders can therefore with reason be called a professional politician and not so much a ‘common man’. <br />He does, however, not refrain completely from populist rhetoric. When he presented his candidates for the 2011 elections for the provinces he emphasised the importance of the citizens in contrast to the elite. He claimed he wanted to return Limburg to the people of Limburg. According to him, politics in the Netherlands focuses too much on the elite in the Hague, which needs to change . This phrase was later repeated by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose government relies on the support of the PVV. A leading opposition MP then accused the PM of using ‘PVV rhetoric’. This example shows that Wilders indeed from time to time uses this populist feature and can even be argued to successfully influence the government with it. <br />What Wilders more clearly emphasises is his fight against the elite. He has managed to create a link between progressive politics and the anti-establishment idea of populism. He has created an image of the Dutch elite as a leftist elite with an inclination for cultural and moral relativism (Vossen, 2010: 27 ). It might be this explicit definition of the elite that explains being a professional politician on the one hand but mixing that with some form of populism on the other. It is just a certain part of the political spectrum that is completely on the wrong path. Wilders wrote a ‘declaration of independence’, his starting point for his movement. In it he explicitly mentions that the elite let ‘this’ happen and now throw their hands in the air and say there is nothing they can do about it anymore (Fennema, 2010: 103). <br />With this he focused on the cultural aspects. This also shows his focus on the progressive elite, conspiring against society. He made a distinction between the Labour party of Wouter Bos, which he thought to be pampering, and the VVD. The people who did not want it to go completely wrong should vote VVD (Ibid., 105). The exponent of this focus on the cultural and moral relativism of the Dutch elite, is his own conspiracy theory about Islam taking over Europe (Eurabia). As Vossen shows, Wilders actively spreads this image of islamification, referring to many experts in the field. With this he is trying to give weight to his claims and focus his campaign on the issue of immigration of Moslim immigrants (Vossen, 2010: 27). <br />Vossen gives no definite answer on whether Wilders is a charismatic leader, calling it difficult to measure in his case because of the closed nature of the party. However, the style of leadership is more important in his case. Wilders maintains control over the party by having no members other than himself (Ibid.:28). This relates to the points made by Taggart on authoritarian leadership. Wilders, whether charismatic or not, should then more be seen as an authoritarian leader. <br />Paul Lucardie (2007), also shows the special position Wilders has put himself in. He qualifies Wilders as a right-wing, semi- hearted liberal nationalist and populist (181). As Vossen, he acknowledges that the behaviour of Wilders is not one of standard populism. Wilders focuses on freedom, but it is limited and very inconsistent with respect to (Islamic) religion. This populism, although by some seen as limited is according to Lucardie clearly noticeable in his reference to the people and the corrupt elite (2007: 179-180). <br />Geert Wilders, although not being the ideal type, can therefore be characterised as a populist politician. His anti-elite politics and the focus on Islam as the key issue around immigration are clear indicators. Wilders is a professional politician and in that way linked to the establishment, but still manages to create an image of being a person that wants to distance himself from ‘the politics in the Hague’. Claiming to return the country to the people is a good example of that. The leadership elements can also be found, although maybe not in the classic charismatic way. Half-hearted or not, Wilders still scores very high on some defining features. <br />Verdonk<br />Where Wilders is a somewhat more complicated story in terms of populism, Verdonk seems all the more to fulfil the standard definition of a populist. As can be seen in table 1, she scores positively on all the criteria. Research on her speeches and interviews shows a clear distinction between the corrupt elite and the people as the virtuous element in society. There is a distrust of the people caused by the elite (Vossen, 2010: 30). Note here that Verdonk does not care whether the elite is left or right wing, it is just the elite. Unlike Wilders she tries to take on the entire establishment and does not even leave out her own former party. She mentioned Mark Rutte as being too left wing and therefore also being out of touch with the people. When founding her movement she did not want to take sides or think in the old way of how the political spectrum was divided. She did not want to be labelled left or right, but wanted to think in old and new (Lucardie, 2007: 181). With this she cannot be seen as more distinguishing herself from the establishment or elite and taking the side of the people. From her history it does make sense for her not just to criticise the left, since she was ousted by the VVD party leaders, but favoured by the people during the elections. In general we can see Verdonk trying to frame that image of her party taking on politics in general. <br />The other important point to qualify Verdonk as a populist is that she places emphasis vigorously on voluntarism and direct democracy. In her view the people should govern and we do not need politicians to sort out the best solutions. This is best illustrated by the fact that she wanted citizens to discuss with each other what the best solutions to certain problems are. The real knowledge of ordinary people would improve this country (Vossen, 2010: 31). What we see here is Verdonk moving away from the politician as a professional in politics. Politicians should listen to the people and she goes to extremes to establish that link. She also did not present a real party manifesto until very late. She presented her plans to the public just a couple of months before the elections. She then focused on taxation, subsidies and other public spending. <br />The personality of Verdonk was therefore very important. As Vossen stresses, she mainly has relied on her own popularity and the image she had built during previous the years. Trots op Nederland is very apolitical, in that way and more a feeling. (Vossen, 2010: 32-33). Because of that lack of content of what the party is really about, it is difficult to clearly explain what kind of party or movement it is. It could only somewhat be qualified as a nationalist party. She does emphasize Dutch culture and the relevance of putting that up front, but not as extremely as does Wilders. She could therefore best be seen as a populist liberal-conservative (Lucardie 2007: 182). The clear difference here is that Wilders actually wants to tackle the influence of Islam in society, whereas Verdonk does not see that danger. She sees it more in terms of not letting the Dutch society fade away in general. By focusing on taxation and more power to the people, she fits very clearly in the classic image as depicted by Taggart. <br />Success and Failure<br />With this outline of populism and Wilders and Verdonk as populist leaders it is now possible to look at the elements that explain success and failure. In general there are three reasons that can be defined why people vote for populist parties: 1) the protest vote, in reaction to other parties; 2) voting for the charisma or leadership; 3) voting for substance or policy preferences. <br />The protest vote comes from what Immerfall sees as a neo-populist agenda. He focuses on what the emphasis of a populist party is and sees its appeal accordingly. He argues it to be important for such a party to hold together what he calls, a neo-populist coalition. This is aimed at exploiting country specific issues, mainly focused on the economic situation of the nation, in order to attract voters (Immerfall, 1998: 250). Populism here is seen as a reaction to what is happening in a country and the reason of existence is an appeal to the people. Populist parties, by showing what is wrong, have a reason to exist. Voters then react to this by seeing the establishment as incompetent, failing to take care of the nation, and vote for the party that raised those questions (Ibid., 258). This explanation of the populist vote has nothing to do with the appeal of leadership or what plans are presented to the people. It is the basic idea of framing the image of the corrupt elite that has let the people down and is not representing the general will anymore. <br />As Taggart explains, there are a problems with the way populist parties behave or are organised, especially in this way. One of these is the criticism of established parties. Populist parties want to distance themselves from established parties, but are forced, by the way politics is organised, to behave in a similar way. As a consequence, they have a large risk of internal conflicts or collapse (Taggart, 2000: 100). In practice it comes down to a very simple logic. At first a populist party successfully explains why the old parties are not the right choice for the voter. With this they create momentum for them to grow in support. However, since this is not based on concrete plans or policy they fall in the trap they have created for themselves. Once the people notice that they are not capable of fulfilling their needs either, the image of a strong counter party disappears and the party collapses. <br />Roger Eatwell sees the importance of charisma in leaders for explaining the success of populist parties. Whereas it is a concept that cannot be defined very easily and can take on many forms, he focuses on the personal presence of the leader. It is about being able to create the right image on television and to catch the right sound bite and not so much about the attraction of the party leader. The focus of the publicity tends to be on the personality of the leader and this creates electoral appeal (Eatwell, 2005: 108). This approach takes away the idea of charisma just being about the leader and puts the emphasis on his actions. It still remains a personalised attraction, but of a different nature. <br />Taggart sees problems with charismatic leadership in the long run. He argues it to be unstable and unreliable. Politicians can never be certain how to effectively sustain their charisma and it is therefore very unstable (Taggart, 2000: 102). As long as politicians are seen to be charismatic and are capable of catching the public eye, they will continue to be popular. However relying on charisma alone seems to form a problem in the long run. A new contender can come along and take away the support or people will start to see through the charismatic mask. <br />From their study, van der Brug and Mughan (2007) conclude that Dutch populist leaders do not have a greater effect on the voting behaviour than their counterparts from the established parties. Even for Pim Fortuyn, arguably a very charismatic individual, no significant difference between his leadership appeal and that of other politicians was found (Van der Brug and Mughan, 2007: 44). This puts further pressure on the effectiveness, if any, of just the leader as a token to attract votes. Even though in a best case scenario it helps to improve voting for the party, it seems to be the case that a populist party cannot rely on the leader alone. <br />There is more to it and Mughan and Paxton (2006) try to explain this with a case study of anti-immigrant feelings in Australia. What they find is that policy preference is highly significant as an explanation for the populist vote. Only if there is correspondence between what voters want and what parties offer them, will they vote for them (Mughan and Paxton, 2006: 354, 357). It seems that voters have an idea of what they want to happen in a country and need parties to defend this or to bring this forward. It can effectively boost the claim made by many populists that the old parties are not representing the will of the people. It could be the case that it is then more than a protest vote and basic rhetoric and gives a chance for parties that can actually find a niche in politics to grow and become important. <br />Ivarsflaten demonstrates the volatility of populist parties when it comes to issues and thereby also acknowledges the importance. She shows that the saliency of economic issues is in particular important (Ivarsflaten, 2005: 489). The populist voter does look at issues and does take the state of the nation into account and is not simply affected by rhetoric or leadership appeal. Van der Brug and Fennema (2003) firmly support this conclusion and conclude from their analysis of the development of anti-immigrant parties, that voters vote according to their issue preferences. They argue that voters for those parties vote for the same reasons as any other voter. Some evidence even hints that they are even more issue voters. (Van der Brug and Fennema, 2003: 66. 70-71). It seems that we should not underestimate the voters for populist parties. There is evidence that they are not the simplistic voters some people hold them to be. The strength of a party does not just rely on the leadership or on a protest vote. It depends heavily on which issues are salient and whether a party manages to bring them forward in an attractive way. There are therefore many ways for a populist party to go wrong and it depends on the context whether such a party is successful or not. <br />Sub-questions/Expectations<br />Based on the literature and the characterisation of both Wilders and Verdonk, it is possible to formulate some sub questions to analyse the success and failure of their parties. As seen above there are three main reasons for the success of populist parties; these will serve as a guide for explaining the differences between the two parties and finding an answer to the research question. From this it is possible to distinguish between the following sub questions. <br />Q1: What was the influence of the ‘protest vote’ for Wilders and Verdonk? <br />It follows from the literature that the protest vote can be one of the reasons why people vote for populist parties. The protest vote is a result of the party emphasising the difference between the old and the new. The establishment has failed the people and the new populist party is there to re-establish the link between the people and the government. For the protest vote explanation to contribute as an important factor of success, we would expect to see the populist party rally against the old parties and their politics. Furthermore the emphasis would be on the old elite that has failed the people and the importance of restoring that faith and giving power back to the people. An important explanation for failure here is the inherent implications of this strategy. When parties run into problems themselves (mostly internal), this will backfire and the protest vote will no longer be of any use to the populist party. If they no longer have the image of being the new that will get rid of the habits of the old, we will expect to see failure. <br />Q2: What was the influence of leadership as an explanation for success and failure?<br />A second explanation of success can be found in the leadership appeal or personification of politics. It works either through charisma or authoritarian leadership. Whereas charisma is not an easy concept to define, for the purpose of this study it will be operationalised in a comprehensive way. Here it will just mean the personal appeal of a leader to attract voters. For this to work out, we will expect to see little or no emphasis on issues or ideas, but attention for the leader in general. It is expected that voter appeal will go up when a lot of attention is given to the populist leader. The danger here is the unstable factor of charismatic leadership. It seems that emphasising just the personal appeal of the leader for too long can pose a problem and an unstable basis for a party to continue to grow further or hold its position. Authoritarian leadership can be a further explanation for a populist party to maintain a strong position. This type of leadership is expected to be very important for holding the party together and we can expect to see differences with regards to voter preferences for parties. <br />Q3: What was the influence of issue preferences and saliency?<br />The final sub question relates somewhat to the second. What is more important, having a leader with a substantial charismatic appeal or talking about the issues and focusing on improving specific things? For this question we would expect to see attention to issues relating to voter appeal. It is also expected that certain issues will result in more support of voters than others. When parties talk more about salient issues or create saliency for an issue they are expected to increase their voting potential. Failing here could be the result of two different things. First of all, it could mean that the specific party is unable to create any substance to link themselves to. This could mean that the party focuses more on leadership potential or has other reasons not to focus on the issues. The other explanation is that a party emphasises an issue that apparently is not that salient to the general public or where, in the eyes of the public, they take a wrong stand.<br />Methodology<br />The three sub questions and subsequently the research question, will be answered by looking at the period between 2006 and 2010. In this period, as seen in figure 1, some interesting developments took place with respect to the voting potential of the two politicians/parties. Verdonk joined the race for the populist vote. Verdonk and Wilders both had their ups and downs in the polls, eventually resulting in Verdonk dropping to nothing and Wilders reaching an all-time high. It can therefore be qualified as a period with many changes and different sides. This makes it an interesting period to analyse. <br />The analysis will be divided into six periods where we see most of the change happen, as indicated in figure 1. The first period is the arrival of Verdonk. Here we see her rising to 25 seats in the polls. At that point in time, the potential PVV vote dropped significantly. It can be seen as the most abrupt shift in the polls in these four years. The second period is the first drop of Verdonk and one of recovery for Wilders. This goes on until the start of the third period, early 2008. Here we see Verdonk reclaiming the position she originally held when she started her movement. The PVV again showed a decrease in vote potential. During the second part of this period this image somewhat returned to the previous status quo until the start of the fourth period. This marks the beginning of the end for Rita Verdonk. We can see a free fall to almost nothing during this period. The PVV retained its position for most of that time. The fifth period then is the staggering growth of the PVV to their all-time high of 32 seats in the polls in early 2009. The final and sixth period that is interesting for analysis is the drop of the PVV in the polls just before the general election. <br />These periods will be used to conduct content analysis by making a reconstruction to see what explains success and failure of these parties. The reconstruction itself will be on the basis of a newspaper analysis of De Telegraaf. With a newspaper analysis it is possible to see what actually happened during these periods. It is possible to see what kind of attention and how much was given to the parties and what the focus of the attention was. If there are differences between articles on leadership appeal for Verdonk and Wilders or on certain issues, then this could be clear indicators of success and failure when linked to the relevant polls. The search term ‘Rita Verdonk’ for the period September 21, 2007 (the day before the 2006 general election) to June 10, 2010 ( the day after the 2010 general election) resulted in 649 De Telegraaf hits. A similar search for ‘Wilders or PVV’ resulted in 2378 hits. The articles published during the selected periods are important for this study. They will be divided by period and analysed. <br /> The reason to take De Telegraaf as the focus of this study is that this paper is well known for its right wing, often populist, sympathies. The long-time motto of the paper: ‘De krant van wakker Nederland’, relating to the newspaper being there for the active Dutch people, is also a reference to this populist appeal. De Telegraaf, because of that, should be the paper that follows the development of these populist parties closely. It will also be more likely to portray a certain picture of the parties with respect to their potential of representing the people. By analysing newspaper content through Nexis Lexis, a reconstruction can be made of the periods selected. Note here that the aim of this research is not to establish causality between media coverage and populist success. Rather the media coverage is used to create the essential narrative. <br />To answer the three sub question on the basis of this reconstruction and the related opinion polls, there are some features will be looked for. For the first question expressions of the ‘protest vote’ are important. The focus will be on whether the two populist parties try to create an image of the elite versus the people and the new party against the establishment. Is it possible to see one party being better equipped to go against politics as usual and show an anti-establishment agenda? Do they create an image of wanting to give the power back to the people? If it is possible to link this protest vote idea to success and failure in the polls than it can be argued to be of influence. <br />For the second question the focus will be on leadership. It could be the case that with the media attention it is very much a picture of Verdonk and or Wilders and not so much the party or the idea. The idea here is that there is negative or positive information about the leaders that can be linked to success and failure in the polls. Related to this is what characteristics are mentioned. Is it the case that a certain image is created of a leader concerning their leadership qualities or their personality that leads to more or less support?<br />The third sub question can be answered by looking at the issues. Here the story is twofold. Since the question is somewhat related to the second sub question the first part is: are there any issues that are linked to the parties? If it is the case that the emphasis is on leadership and not on substance, then that is an important part of the puzzle. The second part is, when issues are present, what kind of issues and stands these parties are linked to. Can these issues be linked to the success or failure of these parties? In short these will be the indicators to answer the sub questions. Each of them can have a separate influence on the polls, but is also important to keep in mind their combining effect on these parties’ results. <br />In addition to the media narrative of De Telegraaf, there are also some interesting data that can be linked to the opinion polls. Peil.nl carried out separate research at important moments over these four years. Many relate to the confidence in the party leaders over time, but they also focus on specific issues when they appeared to be more salient or played a role in decision making on that moment in time. The Dutch Parliamentary Election Study 2010 can also be used to back up the story. Feeling thermometer scores for the parties (both TON and the PVV) and for the party leaders (both Wilders and Verdonk) were included with two survey, providing us with data on the importance of both. For Wilders some additional questions were asked: What issue comes to mind when thinking of the PVV and do you agree with the PVV on that issue? 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