Who is the populist anti-Islam 'Dutch Trump' Geert Wilders?

Geert Wilders' far-right PVV Party of Freedom won the biggest number of seats in Wednesday's Dutch general election.

But who is the man who wants to be the Netherlands' next prime minister?

Wilders, 60, will soon become the longest-serving member of the Dutch parliament, marking his quarter century in post later this year.

It's been a career dogged by controversy, violent threats, hate speech accusations and court cases for the politician with the shock of peroxide blond hair, sometimes known as the 'Dutch Donald Trump'.

His fiery anti-Islam rhetoric also made him a target for extremists and led to him living under round-the-clock protection for years; he has appeared in court as a victim of death threats, vowing never to be silenced.

In 2009, the British government refused to let him visit the country, saying he posed a threat to “community harmony and therefore public security,” and he was convicted of insulting Moroccans at a 2014 election night gathering.

To court mainstream voters this time around, Wilders has sought to focus less on what he calls the "de-Islamization" of the Netherlands and more on tackling hot-button issues such as housing shortages, a cost-of-living crisis and health care.

His campaign platform nonetheless calls for a referendum on the Netherlands leaving the European Union, an “asylum stop” and “no Islamic schools, Qurans and mosques”. He previously likened the Quran to Mein Kampf.

Wilders was first a member of the House of Representatives for the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, where he mentored a young future prime minister Mark Rutte before quitting the party and setting up his own Party for Freedom.

He also is a staunch supporter of Israel and advocates shifting the Embassy of the Netherlands there to Jerusalem and closing the Dutch diplomatic post in Ramallah, home of the Palestinian Authority.