If you ask the parents along the lines of SV Gouda, they say: all those votes for the PVV are not an expression of Muslim hatred, but rather a settlement with the VVD. Hardly anyone expects that Geert Wilders will actually carry out all his sometimes extreme plans.
SV Gouda, a football club with a diverse membership, is located in the Groenhovenpark in Gouda-West. Male voices boom across the leaf-strewn main field, much louder than the shrill screams of the teenagers running after the ball. The sports complex carries the smell of chip shops.
NRC visited another football club in Gouda, Olympia, earlier this Saturday. Club chairman Rutger van den Bout preferred not to have any press on the sidelines. He does see that the election results are causing unrest at the club. For example, parents have requested the Olympia board to send out a message that everyone is welcome at the club. Van den Bout also hears that some parents are not happy with the PVV’s victory. Of course everyone is welcome here, says Van der Bout. “But this is about the children, I don’t want any discussions about politics here.”
At SV Gouda – one grass field and two artificial grass fields – politics along the line are not a problem at all. Although most parents only want their first name in the newspaper, not their last name. Their full names are known to the editors.
Protest vote
Marianne (43), who works as a psychologist in education, is concerned about the election results. “I was hoping for something different. Of course, I don’t know what the other parents here voted…” She looks to the left, where 43-year-old Joyce is sitting, and then to the right, where Nawand (47) is sitting. The three of them follow ‘their’ Gouda against Moordrecht, from the wooden benches in the covered stands.
“I think it was a protest vote for many people,” says Joyce, who works in outpatient care. “They are not for the PVV, but against the VVD.”
“I wonder whether that was a sensible vote,” Marianne responds.
Joyce: “I think that a number of PVV voters were also shocked by the big victory – that they did not expect that there would be so many PVV voters.”
Nawand, who works as an ‘engineer’ for a telecom company, reviewed the PVV program immediately after Wilders’ victory: “Many things in it are simply not correct. He must adhere to the Constitution, to international law. I don’t think he can implement his ideas.”
“Not as he says,” Joyce breaks in. “But if he moderates his tone a little…”
Do you think he can do that, Marianne wonders.
Joyce: “I think he will have to, because otherwise nothing will happen. Then we can go in no time back to the polls. I think they need to find out why so many people voted PVV. Are they for the PVV, or against the rest?”
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She had doubts about her vote until the voting booth, she says. Care and housing were the most important themes for her, also because in her work she sees how clients cannot find a home, “they fall in everywhere.” Which party did she belong to? “I went for the very bottom candidate of the PVV. Purely because I thought: let a riot break out. But I was shocked that he was the biggest, that wasn’t really the intention.”
Marianne puts a hand on her shoulder. “But of course that’s not because of your one vote, hahaha.”
Correct
Accountant Mohamed Massaoudi (50) has come to cheer on a Moordrecht youth team against SV Gouda. He stands with his hands in his pockets, watching. He is not happy that the PVV won, but is confident that other parties will “correct” Wilders. “Wilders has 37 seats, and therefore not the majority. But unfortunately the atmosphere in the country will not improve. People say that they did not vote for Wilders because of his radical views, but they are in his DNA. That worries me.”
Jeroen (49), coach of the under 17s of ESTO from Bodegraven, says in the canteen that he saw the PVV victory coming. Edwin (52) and Marianne (47) listen along. “I look at VI, there is René van der Gijp, who knows exactly what is happening to the Dutch people and what we are dissatisfied with. Wilders is smart, a good debater, and puts everyone on the spot.”
He cannot answer whether he sees the election results as good news for the Netherlands. “Don’t know. We also have two foreigners in the team, who are simply settled in the Netherlands. They are quite a bit worried, I heard from my son.”
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