A group of anti-fascist activists believed that the two parties were planning to merge, and firebombed the hotel where the meeting was held.

[6] Taking advantage of Janmaat's profile, the Centre Democrats contested the 1986 general election under the name Lijst Janmaat/Centrumdemocraten, but gained just 0.1% of the vote and no parliamentary seat.

By contesting the election in all nineteen constituencies, the party won the right to state-sponsored television and radio time but still had no more than 300 registered members.

Based on his conviction that high office should be restricted to third-generation Dutch nationals, he suggested that several cabinet ministers, including Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch-Ballin who was of Jewish descent, and Agriculture State Secretary Dzsingisz Gabor who was of Hungarian descent, should be removed from the Dutch leadership.

[5] The cordon sanitaire turned out to be counterproductive with the Centre Democrats winning 77 seats in the 1994 local elections and gaining representation in almost every city where it fielded a candidate.

[9] After the elections, however, scandal loomed over the Centre Democrats, largely because of its weak organization and lack of active party members.

However, media reports claiming that some newly elected local members had extremist pasts damaged the Centre Democrats' prospects.

A secret recording broadcast on national television one week before the election showed an Amsterdam council member bragging about having set immigrant centers on fire in the early 1980s.

[12] In the election that followed, the Centre Democrats won 2.5% of the vote and three seats in the House of Representatives (Janmaat was joined by Wil Schuurman and Cor Zonneveld),[5] well below earlier expectations.

[12] Due to its growth, and questions arising amongst the other parties over the development of a multicultural society, political opponents began to confront the Centre Democrats directly rather than maintain a strict cordon sanitaire around it.

[16][17] Janmaat remained skeptical of initiatives outside his own control, and expelled multiple local council members from the party.

[14] This was as a result of the Centre Democrats's failure to benefit from increased attention on immigration issues,[7] its years of internal infighting, and new legislation directed mainly against the far-right, which had raised the number of signatures per district required in order to contest elections.

[19] After the 1998 election, Janmaat became increasingly worried by legal pressure, believing that the Centre Democrats could become the government's next target after CP'86 was officially banned in 1998.

[20] As a result, it did not participate in the 2002 general election, where the recently emerged Pim Fortuyn List attracted votes based on an appeal similar to that of the Centre Democrats.

Its 1989 party program stated that "foreigners and minorities either adjust to the Dutch ways and customs or leave the country.

"[2] The Centre Democrats considered Dutch culture to be under threat from foreigners, and that Muslims in particular had come to the Netherlands with the intention of taking over or dominating the country.

[26] While it generally described international organizations such as the United Nations as superfluous and inefficient bureaucracies, it supported NATO as a means of keeping the West safe from Communism.

[27] In its 1998 program, the Centre Democrats included a call for the "reunification with Flanders and other Dutch-speaking territories", thereby promoting the idea of a Greater Netherlands.

[30] The CD regarded itself as related to other European "patriotic parties", but its official contact was limited to the German People's Union, the French National Front and the Belgian Vlaams Blok.

Relations with the Vlaams Blok created a conflict of interest given VB's arguably better contacts with CP'86, the Centre Democrats' main rival in the Netherlands.