Assassination of Pim Fortuyn

Assassination of Pim Fortuyn
The car park where Fortuyn was assassinated (directly behind the red car)
Location	Hilversum, North Holland, Netherlands
Date	6 May 2002 18:05 (CEST)
Target	Pim Fortuyn
Attack type	Assassination
Weapons	Star M-43 Firestar (9×19mm)
Deaths	1 (Fortuyn)

Pim Fortuyn, a Dutch politician, was assassinated by Volkert van der Graaf in Hilversum, North Holland on 6 May 2002, nine days before the Dutch general election of 2002.

On a few occasions, Fortuyn expressed his fear of being murdered: after being pied at the official release of his book De puinhopen van acht jaar Paars and, most notably, on the talk show Jensen!.

In court at his trial, van der Graaf, an environmental and animal rights activist, said he murdered Fortuyn to stop him from exploiting Muslims as "scapegoats" and targeting "the weak members of society" in seeking political power.

Shooting

Fortuyn was fifty-four years old when he was assassinated by Volkert van der Graaf in a car park outside a radio studio where Fortuyn had just given an interview to Ruud de Wild at 3FM. The attacker was pursued by Fortuyn's driver, Hans Smolders, and was arrested shortly afterwards while still in possession of the handgun used to assassinate Fortuyn.

Photograph of Fortuyn taken on 4 May 2002, two days prior to his death.

A photo of a poster near Fortuyn's house in Rotterdam depicting him as "The Dutch Haider" taken on 6 May 2002, the day of the assassination.

Commemorative plaque at the car park where Fortuyn was assassinated

Response

The assassination shocked many in the Netherlands and exposed cultural clashes within the country. Riots broke out on the Binnenhof on the evening following the killing. Politicians from all political parties suspended campaigning, but the elections were not postponed. Under Dutch law, it was not possible to modify the ballots, so Fortuyn became a posthumous candidate. Pim Fortuyn List went on to make an unprecedented debut in the House of Representatives, winning 26 seats (17% of the 150 seats in the house). This success was short-lived. In the elections the following year, Pim Fortuyn seats dropped to eight. After the 2006 elections, the party had no seats in the House of Representatives.

On 15 April 2003, Volkert van der Graaf was convicted of assassinating Fortuyn and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He was released on parole in May 2014 after serving two-thirds of his sentence, the standard procedure under the Dutch penal system.

Pim Fortuyn is credited with changing the Dutch political landscape and culture with his ideology, which came to be known as Fortuynism. The 2002 elections were marked by large losses for the liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and the social democratic Labour Party. Both parties replaced their leaders shortly after the election. The Pim Fortuyn List and the Christian Democratic Appeal made significant gains. There have been others that speculate Fortuyn's perceived martyrdom may have played in favor of Pim Fortuyn List.

The coalition cabinet which formed after the election of the Christian Democratic Appeal, Pim Fortuyn List and People's Party for Freedom and Democracy fell after three months, due to conflicts between Pim Fortuyn List members. In the following elections, the Pim Fortuyn List returned eight seats in the House of Representatives (out of 150) and did not form part of the new government. However, political commentators speculated that there was still a sizable number of discontented voters who might have voted for a non-traditional party, if a viable alternative was available. In recent times, the right-wing Party for Freedom, which has a strong stance on immigration and integration, won nine (out of 150) seats in the 2006 elections and 24 in the 2010 elections.

In a 2004 TV show election, Fortuyn was chosen as De Grootste Nederlander ("Greatest Dutchman of All Time"), followed by William the Silent, the leader of the war for independence that established the precursor to the present-day Netherlands. The validity of this election, where votes were cast online and over the phone, was questioned and dismissed as being easily influenced by Fortuyn’s supporters. The murder of film director Theo van Gogh for comments critical of Islam had occurred a few days before the election and many votes for Fortuyn were attributed to this event. It later turned out that William the Silent had received more votes, many of which were not counted before Fortuyn was declared the winner, due to technical problems.

After Fortuyn's death, the Netherlands' right-wing politicians, including former Minister for Integration and Immigration Rita Verdonk and Geert Wilders, increased in profile and prominence. Further, various conspiracy theories arose after Pim Fortuyn's murder that deeply affected Dutch politics and society.