Geert Wilders sounds curt. “You have to top up the water,” he says to an SBS employee. The party leader debate has not yet started on Thursday evening, only a photo has been taken of the participants: in addition to Wilders, also Frans Timmermans of GroenLinks-PvdA, VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz and CDA leader Henri Bontenbal. But Wilders’ glass is already half empty. This is the first debate he has participated in this election campaign and, like the others, he looks tense.
Timmermans smiles a lot in the debate, even when nothing seems to be funny. Bontenball occasionally closes his eyes and keeps them closed for a few seconds. Yesilgöz moves a lot, sometimes it is difficult for her to blend in with the others and she almost always gives the same non-verbal comment: she shakes her head.
SBS presenter Wilfred Genee had said that they were going to talk about housing, asylum and migration and care. This had already been discussed in previous TV debates, but only now did Wilders also participate, and his party is at the top in the polls.
To run or not?
Genee’s first question to him is: “Are you staying all evening or are you leaving early?”
That is what the other party leaders want to know from him: why did he drop the cabinet? Bontenbal, Timmermans and Yesilgöz have prepared themselves for this and this is their first chance to say this to him on television, six days before the elections. But it is also immediately clear that they are trying to remain calm. They all know: voters don’t want to see arguments, they want to hear how problems are solved. Two years ago, people kept shouting at each other in the SBS debate, and they are now seeing those images again in the replay. Genee has prepared a bucket of water and there is a red horn on the table. Just in case things go wrong again.
Frans Timmermans at The Debate of the Netherlands on SBS6.
Photo Bart Maat
Two years ago, a PVV voter in the audience had made things difficult for Timmermans: she said she could no longer pay the deductible for healthcare. Timmermans promised to halve poverty in the Netherlands and “step by step” to end the deductible. But Wilders became her hero that evening: he promised her that the deductible would be abolished immediately. The fact that it subsequently became the largest party with 37 seats was subsequently also attributed to the SBS debate.
And there he was again. A cabinet had been formed with the PVV, but even halving the deductible had not yet been achieved. And now Wilders was having a hard time. According to him, the abolition had failed “because there was no political support” for it. The other three shouted together, “No, no, no.” According to them, that was not the case. The PVV had not achieved it.
Sorry, we can’t play the video.
Try reloading the page
or try again later.
The party leaders about their desired migration balance and Marjolein Faber
sbs6
And they kept asking him questions. What had his ministers achieved? Bontenbal wanted to hear something concrete, he talked over Wilders. Were they the signs that Minister of Asylum Marjolein Faber had wanted to place at asylum seeker centers? The ribbons for volunteers that she didn’t want to sign? Wilders continued talking, but seemed uncomfortable. And certainly not when Genee asked whether he would make Faber minister again if his party came back into a cabinet. He didn’t know that yet, Wilders said, but according to him she was “not disqualified”. Until then, the audience had often clapped loudly for him. But now he was being laughed at.
That irritated Wilders. “You can all laugh very loudly about our Minister of Asylum here. But just ignore it. She is opposed from all sides.”
Henri Bontenbal (CDA), at SBS6’s Het Debat van Nederland.
Photo Bart Maat
It is a weak moment from Wilders, Bontenbal sees it. “Victim behavior,” says the CDA leader three times in a row.
Three against one
At the start of the debate, one party leader after another had been allowed to explain why working with Wilders was not an option. Yesilgöz said what she has been saying for weeks: that Wilders is a runaway and that that has become a “pattern”. Timmermans started about “principled” objections: Wilders’ statements about Islam. Bontenbal called the “political chaos”, Wilders had “been given twice the chance”.
Wilders himself looked down. It was three against one. Although that was not the goal of the others. This debate with Wilders was their chance to portray themselves as his great opponent and as the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands. In the polls, Timmermans and Bontenbal are closest to the PVV. Timmermans talked a lot throughout the debate. Bontenball less so: he seemed to choose his moments with carefully prepared sentences. When Timmermans – “it is not possible” – and Wilders – “it is possible” – were talking at the same time about an asylum stop, Bontenbal pointed to Wilders and said: “This is the Efteling.” As if Wilders no longer mattered, he turned to Timmermans. He still had “a few questions” for the GroenLinks-PvdA party leader.
Dilan Yesilgöz (VVD), at SBS6.
Photo Bart Maat
Yesilgöz also thought he had found a moment to distinguish himself from the others. It was about asylum and migration. Harm Oosthoek from Rotterdam, in the audience, had told the party leaders that he felt like “a stranger in his own city” and according to Yesilgöz Wilders had no solution for that, but neither did the other two. “It seems like I’m the only one with balls here. So do something.”
Wilfred Genee shouted: “That was rehearsed.” Wilders asked: “Where are those balls?” He laughed loudly.
Sorry, we can’t play the video.
Try reloading the page
or try again later.
The party leaders during the debate
SBS6
Laughing at Rob Jetten
All four of them laughed when it came to Rob Jetten of D66. Genee pretended to be standing in the hallway, to take Wilders’ place if he ran away. Jetten would have loved to participate. “He is always looking around the corner,” said Genee.
In the audience, Truus Zoutenbier (71) had asked the party leaders a question about healthcare: she thought that people with money should pay more and poor people should pay less. She herself was lucky, she said, and she pointed to her twin sister Marianne who was sitting next to her: she had more money and sometimes helped her. Truus Zoutenbier seemed especially happy with Timmermans’ answer, who said that “Mrs Yesilgöz” wanted to increase the deductible to 440 euros per year. His party wanted to halve that and reduce health insurance premiums. At first only Truus Zoutenbier nodded, a little later the sisters both clapped for him.
In the hall, outside the studio, Truus Zoutenbier says that she votes for the Party for the Animals, her sister for BBB. But the party leaders of PVV, CDA, VVD and GroenLinks-PvdA were better than expected. “They are much more human than you would think.” The sisters had seen how friendly they had been with each other during the commercial breaks. “But when the cameras came back on, they started competing against each other again.” They understood that. “They want to win, don’t they.”
NEW: Give this item as a gift
As an NRC subscriber you can subscribe every month 10 items give as a gift to someone without an NRC subscription. The recipient can read the article directly, without a paywall.