won 26 seats at the cost of the established parties, most notably the PvdA and the VVD which both hoped to win the elections. After the election, they had fallen to a shared third position. Why could one outsider without a well-developed party organisation arrive at such a smashing electoral victory? We argue that personality, media attention, party campaigns and candidate behaviour are not the main answers. Who wants to understand Fortuynʼs victory must study his victims. We show that the programmatic convergence of the established parties has made them look indistinguishable in the eyes of many voters. This perceived lack of a democratic choice has strengthened the feeling of many voters that the established parties have become part of the state and have lost their capacity to sense the problems of ordinary citizens, let alone to solve them. Fortuyn effectively used this discontent by means of right-wing populism. Although Fortuyn was pictured as a right-wing extremist, we show that this is not the case when his manifestos are compared with other European parties. This paper was first presented at the Flemish-Dutch Politicologenetmaal, May 2002. We wish to thank all participants, in particular Kris Deschouwer, Paul Lucardie and André Krouwel, for their useful comments. 1
