Dutch populist leader Geert Wilders has launched his election campaign by saying that some Moroccans are "scum." The controversial politician tops opinion polls ahead of the March 15 parliamentary vote, although the race has tightened in recent weeks. The latest remarks come two months after he was convicted of hate speech after promising to reduce the number of Moroccans in the country, and he has vowed to ban Muslim immigration and shut mosques if he wins. According to the 2011 census, there were more than 167,000 Moroccan-born residents of the Netherlands.