“It’s a great result,” says Wim Jaspers from Someren with a broad smile on his face, “and we expected it.” Jaspers is on the board of the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) and was on the list for the elections to the House of Representatives last year. A survey commissioned by Omroep Brabant shows that the support of the BBB has increased five times since the previous elections. Together with the PVV, they become the largest in Brabant.
BBB mainly removes voters from CDA and VVD. Jaspers mainly points to political leader Caroline van der Plas for the success. “She is close to the people. The warm feeling, that’s what people miss in current politics, the honesty.”
“Caroline van der Plas does not talk with flour in her mouth.”
They also see this at the CDA, the big loser in the poll. The party halves and only has a small following in Brabant.
“That was to be expected,” says Maarten van den Tillaart, once party chairman of the CDA in the Tilburg city council and member of the Brabant CDA board. He looks with a jealous look at BBB foreman Van der Plas. need few words and don’t talk with flour in her mouth, she is a breath of fresh air compared to many others.”
And by that he also refers to the current leaders of the CDA. “If I hear Hoekstra say that he still supports the government’s nitrogen policy, but still thinks things should change, what should the average citizen think?”
“Brabant is a rural province and many people feel a bond with the farmers.”
BBB board member Jaspers also thinks that the government’s policy on nitrogen has helped his party in the saddle, especially in Brabant. “Brabant is a rural province and many people feel a bond with the farmers. That explains our success here.”
Van den Tillaart of the CDA thinks that the election of the leader in his party went wrong. That was first Hugo de Jonge and later Wopke Hoekstra was put forward. And Pieter Omtzigt was put aside.
“We should get them back, but then the other leaders will have to give way.” In the poll by Omroep Brabant, Omtzigt comes in at 4 percent that he is participating in the elections with his own party.
“In any case, we will have to state more clearly what we stand for.”
Brabant was once a real CDA province, but that time is long gone, Van den Tillaart acknowledges. “If you only have 4 percent of the vote and you call yourself a people’s party then you have a problem.”
He doesn’t know what the solution is. “In any case, we will have to say more clearly what we stand for. They often start with a compromise before the discussion has started and that has to be done differently.”
Meanwhile, BBB’er Wim Jaspers secretly hopes for a quick cabinet crisis so that the figures in the polls can become reality. And he has every confidence in that. BBB’s membership has grown tremendously in the past three months, from 3,000 to 10,000. “You can assume that they will all vote for us,” he laughs. “It’s not about becoming the biggest party, it’s about the future of the countryside for us.”
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