Henri Bontenbal seems to be able to make it all for a long time.
Is the CDA, always a fervent opponent of a national fireworks ban to preserve traditions, suddenly in favor at the beginning of this year? Bontenbal only has to start talking about the importance of a “decent New Year’s Eve” and his supporters agree, he is rising in the polls.
Is the CDA, traditionally very reluctant to criticize Israel, suddenly talking about the recognition of the Palestinian state under conditions? Bontenbal only has to start talking about humanity and international law and his supporters accept it, he rises in the polls.
Does the CDA want to phase out the mortgage interest deduction? Bontenbal only has to start talking about how it would be “fairer” for starters on the housing market if the tax benefit were to disappear, and his supporters agree, he remains high in the polls.
Does the CDA want to increase taxes to spend more money on defense? Bontenbal only has to start talking about “courageous choices” and “politics through the front door” and his election congress agrees, he remains high in the polls.
And that is how it goes when the CDA decides at the beginning of this summer to vote against the asylum laws of PVV minister Marjolein Faber. This has to do with an addition to those laws by the PVV, which not only wants to criminalize illegality, which the CDA is in favor of, but also to help people without valid residence papers.
The fact that the Christian Democrats are the only (centre) right party to vote against is considered exciting in the party. The CDA had always said that it wanted to take stricter measures to reduce the number of asylum seekers. Will voters now understand that the CDA considers principles and values more important? Bontenbal tries to make it concrete, he keeps talking to the cameras about “the cup of soup” for illegal immigrants, about the street doctor and the Salvation Army volunteers who “could disappear into prison”. The CDA continues to rise in the polls.
Henri Bontenbal is campaigning in Rotterdam
Photo Bart Maat
Applauding after a ‘no’
In the summer of 2023, Henri Bontenbal will be elected CDA leader, fourteen weeks before the House of Representatives elections. The physicist, who had worked as an energy advisor and is still in the House of Representatives, must lead and save the ailing party. It is so obvious that the CDA will lose in its first election that disappointment after the results goes hand in hand with resignation.
The CDA faction, which then only has five seats, works together with the Scientific Institute for the CDA on its own story. Bontenbal gives lectures. It’s a way for him to try out ideas, sharpen thoughts. He quotes thinkers, philosophers, sociologists, writers. His stories are about ‘the responsible society’, and always come down to the importance of values, the desire for a sense of community.
Bontenbal is given plenty of room for this. The pessimism has left the CDA, the dissatisfied members had already dropped out, the political framework that grumbled the loudest has left for NSC and BBB. The loyalists remain, Bontenbal has been freed from the yoke that his predecessors still had to deal with.
In rooms that are becoming increasingly full, the audience is leaving with him. There are regularly non-CDA members among them. The compliments he receives are much more often about him than about the story he tells.
Audience members with questions more than once get answers they may not want to hear. Bontenbal says it when he disagrees with someone, he contradicts people and sometimes also says that he cannot solve a problem. There is loud applause for that. Those asking questions who are told ‘no’ then join the queue for a photo.
Finally, it can be heard afterwards in the audience, a politician who dares to be honest.
Bontenbal cultivates this in the campaign. To anyone who wants to listen, he says that the CDA also dares to make “brave” choices. And just like in the halls, voters don’t seem to shy away from it, but embrace it.
The broadcast of News hour in which Bontenbal made a plea for Article 23
Photo Sander Koning/ANP
17 seconds, 3 sentences and some seats
Dirk Morks is only seen for seventeen seconds News hourin a video in which he speaks three sentences about what it was like as a gay boy at a reformed school. There he was told that he could be himself and come out of the closet. But he also knew that in practice it “wouldn’t be attractive” to do that. “And you didn’t want to… victim isn’t the right word, but you didn’t want to be the character who had to carry that cross to stay alone.”
Morks then receives many messages. From people he knows and also people who recognize themselves in him. He likes that, he says on the phone on election day NRC.
Who doesn’t call him: Henri Bontenbal.
Nine days before the elections, Bontenbal is in the television studio watching the video with Morks. Presenter Mariëlle Tweebeeke then asks him for a response.
The CDA member makes a plea for Article 23, the constitutional article on freedom of education. According to him, this may conflict with Article 1, about equal treatment. More than half a million viewers hear him say: “A student can also go to another school.”
This time he is not taking a new position, the CDA has always defended Article 23, Bontenbal only explains the Christian Democratic philosophy. That evening, not everyone in his party realized how great the impact his words could have.
Bontenbal can, it seems afterwards, also say the wrong thing. A day and many indignant reactions later, including from party leaders of progressive and liberal parties, the CDA knows that it has to fix something.
In Today Inside Bontenbal says that he is “bummed”, his “beta brain” was in News hour took action, so he immediately delved into “technique”. What he “should have said,” he says, is that young people “who are in a tight spot” at religious schools should come out “unscathed.” “You must have a safe climate in schools.” He then repeats that message everywhere, because he is asked about it everywhere.
It doesn’t seem to help much anymore. The CDA immediately drops in the polls, to twenty seats. Researchers from Ipsos I&O attribute the decline mainly to Bontenbal’s statements about Article 23. Some of the people who initially wanted to vote for the CDA because they agreed with the story about decency, only now seem to realize what the C in CDA also stands for.
Like Henri Bontenbal News hour If Dirk had called Morks, he would have been told that Morks almost completely agrees with him. The fragment that was shown on TV “does not do justice” to his entire story, he tells NRC. Morks is not an opponent of Article 23. “I would like to emphasize that.” And Morks also believes that fundamental rights may conflict. “I continue to believe that schools should be allowed to express their identity, even if that is not always pleasant.”
He believes that schools should be a “safe base”, especially for “vulnerable young people” who have questions about their identity. Morks does not like the fact that Bontenbal had said that students could also change schools. “The whole point is that if you have questions at that age, you don’t dare to speak out. Then you don’t say that you want to go to another school.”
“But I also agree with Bontenbal that there may be clashes,” he says.
Henri Bontenbal cuts the cake in the party room, the day after the elections.
Photo Bart Maat
VVD and Christian Union
“So I am Henri,” says Henri Bontenbal. He is standing in front of a half-empty room of students in Groningen in mid-May. There are many CDA members.
Bontenbal answers questions about ‘democratic ethos’, about Gaza. He also talks about the European Investment Bank (here the eyes in the room become a little more glazed), and about his own student days (“We had a study group in which we read philosophers.”)
“Maybe a question about something completely different,” says one of the students. “Suppose we end up in a very nasty world, in which the CDA is suddenly wiped off the ballot paper. What would you vote for then?”
Bontenbal first says that it depends on party programs, and also that he finds it “a complicated” question. “You have the CDA, and then you have nothing for a long time.”
The CDA member says that he would join the Christian Union “for certain aspects”, he starts about a shared view of humanity and society. “But I would turn more to the VVD for certain other aspects.” What he “likes” about that party, he says, “is that they are working to keep the government finances in order, although I think they sometimes do that too rigidly.”
He also says that he would “not vote for the SP” and “never for the PVV or FVD”. He calls GroenLinks-PvdA “also very complicated”.
Two weeks later the Schoof cabinet falls.
Them… who?
“I’m happy when it’s over,” Henri Bontenbal told NRC at the beginning of September, “and everything went well.” It is the morning of the election conference, in which the members will determine the election program and the list of candidates, a few minutes before the Wilhemus is traditionally used. During the short walk to his seat in the front row, Bontenbal is complimented, encouraged and briefly touched by members. The CDA has 25 seats in the polls.
The Christian Democrats are delighted, everything seems to be going well. In the previous election campaign, political youth organization CDJA sold sweaters with ‘Them… who? Henri!’ on it, now there are scarves with ‘Team Henri’ and sweaters with ‘CDA’er’.
The CDA’s self-confidence is reflected in the speech with which Bontenbal opens the campaign. “We are ready to connect, to build and to serve,” he says. “Ready to take responsibility.”
In the weeks that followed, Bontenbal continued to make it clear that the CDA wanted to govern. In the broadcast of News hourAt the very end, he, like all other faction leaders, can say which coalition he prefers after the elections. The CDA has been above 20 seats in the polls for weeks and Henri Bontenbal dares to talk more and more emphatically about the premiership in interviews.
Where the others refuse to name a possible coalition, or hesitate, Bontenbal names them in one go. “VVD, GroenLinks-PvdA, D66 and JA21. And you have to make do with that.”
there is little left of that determination. The CDA has eighteen seats, an increase of thirteen compared to the current number of seats. But Bontenbal no longer wants to say with which parties he envisions a coalition. Of all the parties he mentioned in the campaign as a possible coalition partner, only JA21 became smaller than the CDA.
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