Hermans cannot suppress her tears in the House of Representatives on Wednesday after Wilders asks her ‘how long she has the ambition to remain the assistant, the bag carrier, of Mr Rutte’. It is precisely that frame that Hermans has been trying to shake off for a while: that she owes her place as VVD party leader mainly to the fact that she was Rutte’s political assistant in the past and also the daughter of VVD celebrity Loek Hermans is. She even starts her speech at the VVD congress last Saturday with it. “I’m here because I’m myself,” she says. “I’m Sophie Hermans.”
“It was a good question, it seems,” Wilders concludes after seeing Hermans get emotional. “She should have been so emotional about the poignant examples that Wilders mentioned of people who can no longer make it financially due to VVD policy,” says PVV MP Léon de Jong.
Rather not address the person
Behind the scenes in the coalition, it has also been noticed that the opposition leader’s attack was in a sensitive spot. But at the same time, the VVD party leader can count on a lot of support from the House. “I don’t like to address people on the person,” says SP leader Lilian Marijnissen. She herself has also chopped with Hermans’ axe as the daughter of Jan Marijnissen, the former illustrious leader of her party.
“I also know from my own experience that it is really not nice to be addressed at your father. I also said to her: it says more about people who say that than about you.” At the same time, Marijnissen understands the irritation about Hermans’ contribution: “I do feel the same anger. You want so badly that a number of concrete things emerge from a debate.” But Hermans, according to the SP leader, mainly gets bogged down in repeating his own words that are meaningless to her in Marijnissen’s eyes.
In the debate itself, Hermans can count on the approval of the majority of the House after her rebuttal (“please on the content and not on the person”) to Wilders. She also receives explicit support from party leaders Jan Paternotte (D66), Pieter Heerma (CDA) and Jesse Klaver (GL).
There is also support in her own party. “It is good that you can also show your human side in politics,” says liberal MP Thom van Campen. “Wilders really cared about her personal life. If people consider tears a sign of weakness, there are 19 other parties they can vote for.” Prime Minister Rutte himself only wants to say that he thinks ‘Sophie Hermans’ response is very good’. “But I’m not going to comment on the debate, I’m not going to go into it.”