Netherlands: Parties embarrassed by Turkish, Arabic campaign posters

Netherlands: Parties embarrassed by Turkish, Arabic campaign posters


 A number of parties have been caused embarrassment by Turkish and Arabic-language election posters that have appeared at various places in the country.


Labour (PvdA), the Christian democrats (CDA), centre-left D66, the Socialist Party (SP) and the leftwing Greens have posters up on which Islamic candidates are seeking their ethnic group's voting support. In all cases, these appear to have been initiated by the candidates themselves, without the prior knowledge of the party executive.


The PvdA in Rotterdam has removed election posters solely in Turkish promoting a candidate named Fikri Demirtas. "Posters with slogans in a foreign language are against the internal party line," said PvdA front-runner Dominic Schrijer. "It is an incident, I regret it. It will never happen again."


But similar PvdA campaign material is appearing in all kinds of places. For example, a Turkish flyer is circulating in Amsterdam showing a picture of the local PvdA leader Lodweijk Asscher. There is not a word of Dutch on it.


Most other parties are unable to criticise these posters because they themselves also have Turkish and Moroccan candidates with posters they made themselves. CDA, D66 and GroenLinks all have to deal with this.


The conservatives (VVD) expressed anger about the posters. "An election poster in Turkish really cannot be allowed," fumed VVD's front-runner in Rotterdam, Jeannette Baljeu. "Statements in public places should be in Dutch." The VVD did put up a potser in Chinese itself during the previous elections.


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Source: NIS News (English), h/t Turkish Digest

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