Dutch voters poised to crush Fortuyn's party

Voters in the Netherlands go to the polls today for the second time in less than a year in an election that could return the centre-left to power and produce the first Jewish Prime Minister in Dutch history.

Eight months after the murder of the populist anti-immigration campaigner, Pim Fortuyn, the party he founded will be the main casualty as voters punish it for the constant feuding within its ranks.

The Labour Party (PvdA), which lost power in May when thousands of its traditional supporters backed Mr Fortuyn's LPF party, could be about to make a surprise return to government, possibly as the biggest bloc in the parliament.

Much of the credit for PvdA's new-found strength goes to the party's charismatic party leader, Wouter Bos, who ran a slick campaign, performing well in television debates. Mr Bos, 39, has said he does not want to be Prime Minister if the PvdA wins, preferring to stay in parliament, and the party has nominated the Mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, who is seen as a more experienced political operator.

If elected to the post, Mr Cohen would make history by becoming the first Jewish premier in Dutch history. The Netherlands lost 70 per cent of its Jewish population during the Nazi occupation of the Second World War, and Mr Cohen's grandparents were among the victims of the Holocaust.

The PvdA has staged a remarkable and unexpected revival since the May elections, when it was ejected from office after almost a decade in coalition governments.

The subsequent administration, led by the former Christian Democrat premier Jan Peter Balkenende and including Mr Fortuyn's party, Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF) and the VVD Liberals, collapsed in October amid bickering. At the time, Mr Balkenende was expected to form the next government with the Liberals but without the VVD, an outcome that remains possible.

Most polls show the PvdA and the Christian Democrats running neck and neck, but one survey predicts that the PvdA will increase its seats from 23 to 42, becoming the biggest party in the Netherlands, ahead of the Christian Democrats on 40. These findings suggest that disillusioned Fortuyn voters have returned to the PvdA in droves.

In any event today's results will be followed by weeks of negotiations while the nation's senior politicians try to form a coalition.

The poll is expected to wipe out the LPF as a serious force, with it paying the price for its vicious internal divisions and its failure to replace Mr Fortuyn with a credible leader.

But while the Netherlands is about to return to its traditional centre-ground politics, Mr Fortuyn has left his mark.

All of the parties, including the PvdA, have campaigned on crime, immigration and security, which were the centrepieces of the Fortuyn agenda. The VVD Liberals have hardened their line on immigration with their leader, Gerrit Zalm, repeating Mr Fortuyn's mantra that the Netherlands is full.

They have been boosted by the defection from the PvdA of the Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali who is the daughter of a Somali dissident imprisoned by the regime of Mohamed Siad Barre in the 1970s. She has lived in Kenya, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. She now calls herself an "ex-Muslim" and once fled the Netherlands to escape an arranged marriage.

Galen Irwin, a political scientist at Leiden University, said: "All the parties have adopted a harder line. There's no real difference between them. It's not a particularly good time to be an immigrant."