Dutch govt talks hit hurdle as Geert Wilders ally quits over fraud allegation

The new government formation was thrown into disarray before it even started when a party ally of far-right Dutch election winner Geert Wilders resigned from his position on Monday due to accusations of fraud.Gom van Strien, a senator for the Party for Freedom led by Wilders, has, however, denied wrongdoing after Dutch media reported that he was embroiled in a fraud caseVan Strien was designated last week as a "scout" to explore potential alliances. He was set to meet Wilders and other party leaders on Monday, but those meetings were canceled.On Monday morning, he issued a statement saying that “both the unrest that has arisen about this and the preparation of a response to it” hampered his work seeking a coalition.Van Strien is an experienced but largely unknown senator for Wilders' party, known by its Dutch acronym PVV.He had been tasked with making an inventory of possible coalitions and reporting back to the lower house of the Dutch parliament by early December so that lawmakers could debate the issue on 6 December before appointing another official to begin more concrete talks on forming a coalition.Wilders' PVV was the shock winner of last week's Dutch election in a stunning shift to the far right in Dutch politics that sent shockwaves through Europe. Long an outsider largely shunned by mainstream parties, Wilders is now front and center of moves to form a new ruling coalition.However, his hopes of quickly forming a right-of-center coalition were dealt a blow last week when the new leader of the mainstream center-right party of outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte said her party would not join a coalition led by the PVV.Van Strien's resignation highlights one of the key issues Wilders is likely to face over the next weeks as its raft of new lawmakers take their seats in parliament — a lack of political experience in his party. The PVV has always been tightly centered around the figure of Wilders alone, who sets policy and is one of only a few publicly recognizable faces of the party.With inputs from agencies