The Dutch anti-immigration party List Pim Fortuyn is facing a growing crisis as its leadership descends into acrimony and confusion and it is shunned by potential coalition partners.
The List Pim Fortuyn finished second in Wednesday's general election, winning 26 seats in the 150-seat parliament. The three-month-old party had gained many sympathy votes after the murder of its leader on 6 May.
The LPF was widely expected to form a government with the largest party, the Christian Democrats (CDA), and the right-wing liberals (VVD), replacing the left-right 'purple' coalition that had governed since 1994.
However, both of these parties appear reluctant to govern with the LPF. The Christian Democrat leader Jan Peter Balkenende, a former professor of Christian social thought, who will almost certainly be the next Prime Minister, has called the disintegrating anti-immigrant party 'an uncertain factor', and disputes its assertion that 'the Netherlands is full'.
Both VVD and the Christian Democrats appear wary of governing with a racist party that seems unlikely to hold together for long.
The LPF was a vehicle for Pim Fortuyn. Since his murder it has begun falling apart. 'We feel like orphans,' admitted the party's new leader Mat Herben, a pocket-sized former Defence Ministry civil servant, who describes himself as 'a freemason and a good Catholic boy'.
The LPF was founded in February, after Fortuyn split with his previous party, the Liveable Netherlands. Within days the new party had drawn up a list of candidates, many of whom had barely met Fortuyn and had not been vetted. In a country where politicians are elected largely for their competence, many predicted that the LPF would lack the ability to govern. However, few had expected the party to start falling apart so quickly.
Winny de Jong, a senior LPF figure who had been tipped as Fortuyn's potential successor, has largely disappeared since his murder. After De Jong initially failed to appear at the party's gathering on election night, Herben explained that she was exhausted and felt a 'nagging sadness about Pim'. When De Jong finally turned up she collapsed into the arms of a colleague saying: 'I was afraid we'd be the biggest party.'
The party chairman, Pieter Langendam, is to resign next month after causing a furore by blaming left-wing parties for Fortuyn's murder. The two men who founded the party with Langendam, John Dost and Albert de Booij, are said to have had a physical fight.
On Friday the LPF MP Leon Geurts resigned from politics, having falsely claimed to hold a degree in company economics. His fellow MP Cor Eberhard is staying put even though it has emerged that he made his money from the websites worldsex.com and hotsexteens.com.
The LPF appears to acknowledge its personnel problems. It is negotiating with businessmen to take cabinet posts in the new government. Herben claimed on election night that 'the dream coalition of CDA, LPF and VVD is coming.' He says: 'The Christian Democrats have a debt of honour to the public, because it has hitchhiked along with the success of the List Pim Fortuyn.'
It is true that the Christian Democrats would not have won 43 seats but for Fortuyn's murder. He has become a secular saint in the Netherlands, and his death caused voters to reject the government parties. However, many also shunned the extremist LPF, turning instead to the Christian Democrats.
Green Left and the Social Democrats are unwilling to govern, making life harder for the CDA, which must now try to persuade itself and the VVD to take a leap in the dark with the unpredictable anti-immigrants.