Should the CDA stay in the cabinet? And can Wopke Hoekstra remain party leader? These are questions asked by regional CDA members after the electoral defeat, when voters en masse turned their backs on the party.
“What’s next?” The question is also the focus of attention in the party’s parliamentary group. The group consultation will take place on Tuesday, and after the digital crisis consultations on Friday, the party leadership and state heads will continue to discuss this day. Stakeholders told NOS that there was great anger and disappointment at these consultations.
The blow of the electoral defeat hit hard. “Continuing as if nothing happened is no longer an option,” one participant said.
Regional politicians have struggled for some time over the party’s trajectory, primarily over its nitrogen policy and its treatment of farmers. The feeling among the regional CDA members NOS spoke with is that the defeat in the provincial elections was due to the national trend.
CDA ministers on Friday said the cabinet could not continue on the path of nitrogen policy after the BBB’s big victory. So far, the government insists on halving nitrogen emissions by 2030 and does not exclude forced sanitation in livestock.
The Ministry of Agriculture has begun to think about future nitrogen policy, but Prime Minister Rutte declined to say on Friday what that could mean in practice. “If the CDA in the coalition fails to do anything in this area, then you should seriously ask what else we are doing in this cabinet,” one CDA member told NOS.
Many point out that sticking to 2030 and sticking to mandatory purchases can and should be breaking points for the CDA. Many CDA members also talk about an existential crisis. And the direction of the party table and the party clue is missing, one hears.
“missold”
Various CDA documents related to this course have been published in recent years, such as the recent ‘For All Netherlands’ report advocating tackling inequality and restoring institutions to the country. “There is very little wrong with this content,” says one CDA member, “but it is difficult to manage when voters in a cabinet to which the CDA belongs are given completely different policies.”
“After two years in the cabinet, the CDA mostly capitulated and gained little,” says another. Another says there is little wrong with the content. “But it was wrongly sold by the party leadership who made the wrong decisions in our profiling.”
In a letter from the South Holland Provincial Department to members about the electoral defeat, chairman Peter Heijkoop considers it unwise to discuss “which dolls should go now”. However, there is an urgent need to “think for oneself and renew”. “I don’t want to talk about people right now, but people will have to think about their future in the near future,” he explains.
He also writes that “more than ever” “moral leadership” is needed, not “managers of BV Nederland”. In the reasoning for his letter, he tells NOS that the wrong points were highlighted in the campaign. “Asylum and immigration are important, but so is care, and Wopke doesn’t care much about that.”
Heijkoop feels that the CDA lags far behind the VVD. “If we always emphasize crossing and safety, why choose us as a kind of VVD light instead of the original?”
Dissatisfaction can also be heard in The Hague. MP Amhaouch is frustrated by the cabinet’s “general failure to deliver and repeatedly failing to find a solution” in all regions. He feels that as a member of the group he should “put his hand on his own chest”. “Were we so cute and naive here compared to a cabinet where a VVD prime minister trivializes everything and a D66 radicalizes everything? That’s our assignment for this week.”
Source: NOS
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
