Freek Jansen, Member of Parliament on behalf of Forum for Democracy, will temporarily relinquish his seat to his party colleague Pepijn van Houwelingen, the party reported on Monday night. Over the next six months, Van Houwelingen will prepare the parliamentary inquiry into the government’s corona policy. He will then relinquish the seat to Jansen. Van Houwelingen was already in Parliament during the previous cabinet period and was in fourth place on the FVD list last November. The party won three seats, so Van Houwelingen was not re-elected.
Such an exchange is highly unusual, but constitutionally correct. According to the political information website parliament.com such a change was last made in 1977, by the PvdA. Jansen cannot reclaim his seat in six months; Van Houwelingen will have to step down voluntarily.
Van Houwelingen is critical of the government’s restrictions on freedom to keep the corona pandemic under control and is a supporter of numerous conspiracy theories about the corona pandemic. For example, he regularly links excess mortality and corona vaccinations. This radical attitude led to a conflict between Van Houwelingen and the rest of the committee members who jointly prepared the parliamentary inquiry, and some of his committee colleagues reportedly intended to remove him from the committee. It didn’t get that far.
In June 2022, the House unanimously approved the VVD’s proposal to set up a preparatory committee. A year later, the survey was discontinued, but after the PVV’s election victory last November, there was a majority in favor of such a survey again.