Fortuyn exhumation to be shown on TV

In death as in life Pim Fortuyn, the maverick Dutch politician, has the power to provoke controversy, and a decision to show his coffin being dug up live on national television for reburial purposes has outraged many in the Netherlands.

The ceremony, which will take place in the village of Driehuis-Westerveld on the north-west Dutch coast today, has the blessing of Fortuyn's family and will be shown by commercial broadcaster SBS6. The station will also televise tomorrow's reburial in Italy, where the politician owned a holiday villa.

The voyeuristic nature of the ceremony has generated allegations that his supporters are trying to turn him into a quasi-religious figure and perpetuate the legend of Pim Fortuyn the martyr.

His murder in May at the hands of an apparently deranged animal rights activist led to an outpouring of grief on a scale compared to the death of Princess Diana, and gave him iconic status overnight.

However, although the anti-immigration party he left behind went on to take second place in a general election in the same month, recent opinion polls show that its support has fallen away. A televised exhumation and reburial, after he has already had one funeral, could, cynics suggest, be a clever ploy to revitalise its flagging fortunes.

However, a recent phone-in poll on a popular radio show found that many ordinary Dutch people feel deeply uncomfortable with the decision to televise the ceremony - 70% said they were opposed while just 20% said they agreed with the decision.

"It will be the first time someone in the Netherlands has been dug up on TV," Willem Breedveld, a senior media commentator, said. "We normally don't do it out of respect for the dead. But [his supporters] want to show a sort of resurrection of Pim Fortuyn just like the resurrection of the lord, and that's blasphemy."

There are rumours that Fortuyn's body was never buried in his family grave but frozen and stored somewhere else for security and hygiene purposes. Suspicions were raised when people noticed that the hearse carrying his body from Rotterdam was not the same one that arrived at Driehuis-Westerveld, but nobody has been able to prove anything.

His body will be flown from Rotterdam to Italy tomorrow, where he will be reburied in "a private ceremony" - watched by anyone who subscribes to SBS6.