“Many people are still floating, which offers the VVD enormous opportunities.” Number three on the VVD list, Ruben Brekelmans (39) from Oisterwijk, keeps his spirits up. According to the polls, many voters are turning their backs on the party of Brekelmans and party leader Dilan Yesilgöz. A punishment for participating in the Schoof cabinet, which existed for less than a year and achieved little?
Brekelmans does think that that plays a role, but he also hopes that voters will see that the VVD ministers have done a good job, “while colleagues created chaos”. He tells this in episode 3 of Brabant Kiest, the podcast from Omroep Brabant. In the coming weeks, prominent politicians, mostly from Brabant, will be speaking in the podcast.
The conversation with the politician takes place in the ministerial rooms of the ancient part of what was once the ‘ministry of war’. High ceilings, antique furniture and a life-size painting of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter on the wall.
Brekelmans grew up in Kaatsheuvel and now lives in Oisterwijk. His political career went quickly. He entered the House of Representatives for the VVD in 2021, and last year he became minister of defense.
“We are strong enough to stand up for our freedom.”
So the conversation is also about security in Europe. According to him, we are at a turning point in history, due to the rise of dictatorships and a large-scale war on European soil.
“A dark page, but I am also optimistic. We are strong enough to stand up for our freedom and democracy.” Conscription? According to Brekelmans, that is not necessary at all. “Because there are enough young people who volunteer. Young people now really feel the urgency. That was not the case at all twenty years ago, when I was a student.”
Brekelmans studied Economics in Tilburg. Already in high school he had become a member of the youth organization of the VVD, the JOVD. “That was actually because of my father,” he says. He had a small video company in Kaatsheuvel that was struggling due to the bursting of the internet bubble on the stock exchanges in 2000. “I thought: how is it possible that something that happens so far away has an influence on such a small company? I started studying economics to understand that.”
Politics also soon came into play. “Because if you want to do something about it, you have to go into politics.” He seems to feel like a fish in water there. “I just really enjoy politics. And if the VVD does not get into a new cabinet, I will return to the House of Representatives with full conviction.”
“As if we are always working on strategy.”
Brekelmans also saw that a lot did not go well at the VVD this summer. For example, a message on X from Yesilgöz, in which she accused singer Douwe Bob of anti-Semitism. “But she put on the sackcloth for that. I thought that was very powerful.”
He rejects the accusation that the VVD has become populist to take the wind out of the PVV’s sails. “I find that cynical, as if we are always working on strategy.”
He mentions an example that, not coincidentally, concerns asylum migration. As a senior civil servant, he was closely involved in the reception of asylum seekers. “I just saw that there is a maximum number of people we can accommodate. So when I say: fewer asylum seekers in the Netherlands, that is just my opinion and not a strategy.”
Episode 3 of Brabant Kiest, the podcast with VVD member Ruben Brekelmans can be heard here:
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