It seems that the largest party in Simpelveld – Samen 1 – is being kept outside the new coalition. Together 1 was the big winner of the elections. The party rose from 2 to 5 seats.
But according to Samen 1, the past month has shown that the current coalition parties simply want to continue together. This concerns the local parties BurgerBelangen, Leefbaar Simpelveld and Lokaal Actief.
Narrow majority
“It has become clear that they do not want to talk to Samen 1, let alone collaborate. It is therefore clear that they have concluded a pact in advance,” the party said in a press release. The three parties still have a narrow majority of 8 of the 15 seats. During the elections, BurgerBelangen and Leefbaar Simpelveld remained the same with 4 and 3 seats respectively. Local Active dropped from 3 to 1 seat.
Unreliable and disrespectful
Initially, Samen 1 had engaged former mayor Jos Som van Kerkrade as an informant to talk to all five parties in the city council. His advice has remained secret until now. But Samen 1 has now announced that the reports show that the existing coalition parties consider Samen 1 to be unreliable and disrespectful and that, according to them, the mutual problems are unbridgeable. Only the CDA is willing to cooperate with Samen 1. The CDA fell from 3 to 2 seats in the elections.
populist
That image was subsequently confirmed, according to Samen 1. Proposals to enter into discussions were rejected. The reason given – as explained by Samen 1 – was that Samen 1 is populist and would not support the independently developed projects of the coalition. Together 1 combats that image. She does, however, largely support these projects, such as refurbishing the station environment, the Huls lookout point and the healthy primary school of the future. “But we do not agree with how those projects came about. That has nothing to do with populism, but with listening to the citizens. A councilor should stand for that,” said Samen 1.
Attempt
Nevertheless, Samen 1 will make another attempt – in her words – to do justice to the will of the voters for change and innovation and to ensure that the manageability of Simpelveld is not compromised. It will draw up a broad council program that will be presented to the city council for approval. “Since 90 percent of all council proposals have been unanimously approved in the past 4 years and the party programs of all groups do not differ substantially from each other, this should certainly be a possibility,” Samen 1 writes in its press release.