For the BoerBurgerBeweging, two candidates from the bottom of the list will still be in the Provincial Council of Drenthe. They are Ina Koning from Bovensmilde and Jannes Kerssies from Drijber, who is also chairperson of Gemeentebelangen/BBBondgenoot in the municipal council of Midden-Drenthe. They were eighteen and nineteen on the BBB candidate list.
In the Drents Parliament, the two take the place of the candidates Cindy Lodeizen from Assen, who was in tenth place, and Karel Timmerman from New Amsterdam in seventeenth place. Both give up their seats.
Newcomer BBB gets seventeen seats in the Drenthe Parliament, which has 43 seats, and has a total of 21 candidates on the list. The Assense Lodeizen was also a BBB candidate for the Hunze en Aa’s water board. She chooses to sit on the water board board. Legally, membership of the States is incompatible with a position in the water board.
Timmerman has declined his state seat because of his busy job. As a result, 76-year-old Jannes Kerssies ends up in the provincial government, who has also been active in municipal politics for many years. Kerssies herself said she had ‘not counted on it at all’.
The former cattle farmer has been a councilor for Municipal Interests since 1994, first in the then municipality of Beilen, and later in Central Drenthe. “Of course I am surprised that I suddenly become a Member of Parliament. When I was approached last year if I also wanted to be on the BBB candidate list, I immediately said ‘yes’. But then somewhere at the bottom of the list. That also happened with place nineteen. But I never thought that the BBB in Drenthe would book such a great victory with seventeen seats. “At my age I can still do that.”
According to Kerssies, the BBB’s victory already started last year in Midden-Drenthe with the municipal elections. “With the elections, we were the first and only independent party in Drenthe to team up with the BBB and became BBBally. We then went from three to five seats. With that we went from fifth to first in the city council and were so the big winner in Central Drenthe.”
In addition to being a Member of Parliament, Jannes Kerssies will also remain the chair of the Municipal Interests/BBBondgenoten group in the council of Central Drenthe for the time being. “Of course I don’t know what the future will bring, but I’m going to do it this way for the time being,” says Kerssies.
Hendrik Smeenge from Roden, who will also become a Member of Parliament for the BBB from tomorrow, has been a municipal councilor for Gemeentebelangen in Noordenveld for fifteen years. He will retire as a council member.