GroenLinks-PvdA leader Jesse Klaver has “double feelings” on Sunday, he says seriously. To start with, because Ajax drew, the Ajax player jokes. The audience laughs. Then seriously again: he is happy that the “agony” that he believes the Schoof cabinet was has come to an end. And that a cabinet team of D66, VVD and CDA will soon take office “with which we may not agree”, but with which the national government “is in good hands”. One person claps at that comment, of the approximately 450 people present in a room in the industrially furnished restaurant LE:EN in Utrecht. The audience also laughs at that.
Klaver has called together his members to respond to what GroenLinks-PvdA members present see as an explicit right-wing coalition agreement. Since he was excluded from the coalition negotiations by the VVD, the party believes he has been unfairly portrayed as a grump. Like an upset politician. He seems to want to combat that image this Sunday: Klaver makes a lot of jokes and is at ease on stage. He speaks from memory.
In LE:EN in Utrecht everyone agrees: the coalition agreement is a VVD agreement. The cuts of 10 billion euros on healthcare and 6.5 billion on social security are particularly bad. GroenLinks-PvdA was one of the few parties that wanted to invest extra money in healthcare in the recent elections. According to Klaver, the coalition wants to “cut back on people, and we are not going to do that.” But he gives mixed signals about what that means.
Serious threat
He says: “In parliament we will ensure that the irresponsible cuts that are being proposed do not go ahead.” That is a serious threat, because the minority coalition only has 66 seats and GroenLinks-PvdA has 20. In the Senate, GroenLinks-PvdA is almost even more important, because there the coalition has 22 seats and GroenLinks-PvdA, with 14 seats, seems indispensable for many plans.
But Klaver also says: “I’m not going to sell hot cakes by saying that we could never support cuts.”
Jesse Klaver will have to walk a tightrope in the near future, it appears in Utrecht. What his members want, as well as his faction, is certainly not clear. Before Klaver, Teun Toebes takes the stage, a nurse who has lived with elderly people with dementia. He sees quite an opportunity in the coalition’s plans, and says: “I really hope that GroenLinks-PvdA will also take the outstretched hand in the coming conversations and ensure that we tackle the inequalities in the structures of the healthcare system.” There is a long round of applause. But there is also a long round of applause when Klaver says that the cuts to health care and social security cannot continue.
Difference of opinion
It is unclear what GroenLinks-PvdA will do, but it is also not yet clear how the coalition will position itself towards them. In terms of content, it is clear that D66, VVD and CDA have reached an agreement that is far removed from GroenLinks-PvdA.
But is that because the three parties actually want to turn so far to the right, or are they just creating bargaining chips to negotiate with GroenLinks-PvdA? MPs from GroenLinks-PvdA don’t know yet, they have different opinions about it. Furthermore, even if part of the plans is change, what part?
If Klaver chooses the wrong attitude – too constructive or too much of a contrarian – he can be punished twice
Klaver’s balancing act is high stakes, because the municipal elections are already on March 18, and a year later there are the Provincial Council elections. If Klaver chooses the wrong attitude – too constructive or too much of a contrarian – he can be punished twice. That could be disastrous for his fledgling leadership of the merged party. This summer, GroenLinks and the PvdA will finally merge, which members see as an opportunity to get rid of the damaged image that accompanies them after years of mediocre results in elections.
The minority coalition forces GroenLinks-PvdA into a passive position, it seems: they come up with plans, GroenLinks-PvdA must participate or pay the price for a non-constructive attitude. But on Tuesday, MP Habtamu de Hoop already showed that his party can also choose to move forward. He submitted a motion to stop a proposed highway widening through the Amelisweerd estate in Utrecht. D66 and CDA helped the motion get a majority, VVD was against. Thus he split the coalition.
Other MPs from GroenLinks-PvdA say behind the scenes that they see more opportunities to achieve majorities in this way, right through the coalition that is much too right for them.
The journalistic principles of NRC
