At the start of the year, Melkert and the VVD leader Hans Dijkstal appeared to be the frontrunners in the race to become Prime Minister. The situation changed with the arrival of the controversial politician Pim Fortuyn. Fortuyn was a critic of Islam and had questioned whether its culture was compatible with Western society even before the September 11 attacks. He was elected the leader of Liveable Netherlands in November 2001, but he was expelled from the party after making controversial comments in an interview with De Volkskrant on 9 February 2002. Fortuyn had described Islam as a "backward culture", criticizing its attitude to homosexuality (he himself was openly gay). Part of the reason for the uproar was that the Dutch word for "backward" ("achterlijk") can also be used in an insulting sense (with a similar meaning to the word "retarded"); Fortuyn stated he used the word in the former sense. Two days later, he formed his own party, the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) in order to contest to the upcoming general election, while maintaining the leadership over the local Livable Rotterdam party.