Dutch still favour dead anti-immigrant politician

AMSTERDAM, May 5 (Reuters) One quarter of the Dutch electorate would vote for a murdered politician who preached that Islam was incompatible with mainstream culture, if he was still alive, a survey showed today.

Pim Fortuyn -- whose popular anti-immigrant rhetoric shattered the sacrosanct Dutch political mantra of tolerance -- remains one of the country's most popular politicians five years after he was gunned down by an animal rights protester.

About a quarter of the respondents to an opinion poll conducted by Interview-NSS for Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf said they would vote for Fortuyn if he was still alive and 45 per cent said that a politician of his calibre was indispensable.

Some 44 percent of the Dutch reckon that politics would have been better with Fortuyn alive, said the poll published a day before the fifth year anniversary of his killing on May 6, 2002.

The true state of society in the Netherlands, once lauded as multicultural, became a key issue in 2002 general election after Fortuyn stole the limelight with his rhetoric.

Since his death, mainstream parties in the Netherlands have adopted many of his ideas, such as demanding that immigrants take language and citizenship tests.

The result is that the very country which long prided itself on being a pioneer for unconventional policies on prostitution and drugs has now pioneered some of Europe's toughest integration and entry laws.

Last year the government decided to ban Muslim face veils in public.

Fortuyn's party, which came second in the national election in May 2002 shortly after his killing, has not fared as well as his personal legacy. It sunk into political obscurity and closed its headquarters earlier this week after running out of cash. De Telegraaf poll showed that anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders is widely seen as Fortuyn's heir. Wilders, whose party won 9 seats in last November's election, wants to halt Muslim immigration.

About one million Muslims live in the Netherlands out of a population of 16 million.

REUTERS SBC PM1745