Does Christian Democrat member Peter Umtzet leave politics? And are PvdA and GroenLinks no longer stuck together? The formation memo that Scout Cagsa Olungren, D66 Deputy Prime Minister, was under her arm, raises these questions. ANP photographer recorded it on Thursday and when zoomed in, the text of the note could be read.
The four words Omtzigt’s position. The job elsewhere stands out the most. The memo also states, among other things, that the left-wing parties “don’t really cling to one another”. Why did the scouts – besides Olongren Senator for VVD Annemarie Goritsma – write this is not yet clear. They abandoned their mandate, stating that the notes “are not a direct reflection of discussions that have already taken place” and “have not been discussed with any of the negotiators.”
Keep party leaders out of the wind
With the manifesto, former scouts try to keep the party leaders off the wind. But what should PvdA leader Lillian Blumen and GroenLinks leader Jesse Clapper think (of each other)? “The PvdA’s position was, and is not without, bringing another left-wing party to the negotiating table,” Blumen said. Clover was slightly less hard. On Thursday, he called again for the formation of a government “as progressive as possible.”
Concerns in the CDA are greater. How is this party keeping Peter Umtziget on board? CDA leader Wopke Hoekstra contradicts that he spoke to Scouts about Omtzigt and “a position elsewhere”. He reacted angrily: “Strange, this is a glimpse of the scouts’ notes Olungren. Topics that have not been discussed with me and are not related to any of them.”
Peter Umtziget has been exhausted at home for a while now. Last week he said: “The recovery takes longer and I have tried to campaign too much, sometimes against my best judgment.” In recent years, Omtzigt has raised the issue of how parents were wrongly denied a childcare allowance and had to pay back the money. He was also involved in corruption in Malta in the Council of Europe and participated in the elections of the best candidates, which he lost by a narrow margin. In February he published a book.
Omtzigt does not abandon his constituents
He himself did not respond to the unrest in The Hague on Thursday. His wife, Ever Koch, a CDA member in their hometown Inskede, wrote on Twitter that he “will not abandon his constituents.” Omtzigt, second on the CDA list, got 342,000 preference votes. Party leader Wopke Hoekstra garnered 437,000 votes.
Where do the four words about Omtzigt come from is not yet clear. CDA has an ambiguous relationship with him. It attacks government authority and that might be important to the CDA, but at the same time the CDA itself is in the driver’s seat. It has a wide support base, outside of CDA as well, but it is also considered a special type, which sometimes creates friction. Hoekstra spoke on his behalf Thursday: “He’s a CDA member from A to Z. I have regular and good contact with him. Hope to see him again soon.”
Outside of CDA, in VVD and D66, they definitely have a hard time with Omtzigt. He is firmly opposed to the insufficient information he receives from the Cabinet. He refers to the black coating of the documents as the “Root Doctrine.” During the hearings on the benefits issue, it became apparent that complaints had also been lodged in Cabinet meetings about Omtzigt’s tough questions.
Read also:
Drifting CDA awaits critical analysis: Where did the error occur?
The Christian Democrats will find out what went wrong in the elections and end up with a messy party leader, lack of unity, and trajectory of deviance.
