One is a chicken farmer, the other a basketball coach and tutor, some work in healthcare and, of course, there is now also a pizza delivery boy on behalf of the BoerBurgerBeweging in the Drents Parliament.
Thanks to the unsurpassed clerk of the Provincial Council, a neat overview of the Members of Parliament elected on March 15 is available on the internet, with their portraits and information about what they do for a living besides their political work.
The seventeen newcomers of the BBB mainly have a somewhat different background than politicians of traditional parties such as PvdA, CDA and VVD. They often come from a circle of people who work in a policy-like position in government or related sectors. There is nothing wrong with that in itself, but it did create a group that is no longer so representative of the population and with jargon that is often difficult for ordinary people to understand. In that sense, the emergence of the BBB is a blessing. And that pizza delivery boy did receive 4385 preferential votes. The average civil servant-politician can only dream of that.
The employees of the registry, who assist the Members of Parliament and ensure that the meetings run smoothly, must familiarize all those new politicians. They explain how to get information, how to debate properly, how to write written questions and so on. All important, but the provincial government has to adapt to the newcomers rather than the other way around.
Civil servants write notes and reports on the basis of which Members of Parliament make decisions. They should quickly get used to the fact that there is now a different type of politicians. It’s not that difficult either. When they visit their aunt Truus on a Sunday afternoon, those policymakers will probably be able to tell her in plain language what their work entails. But apparently on Monday, when they start typing some note, a button flips and they use that jargon of those traditional politicians.
Now that the proverbial aunt Truus is in the States, civil servants had better pretend during the week that they are having tea with her on Sunday afternoon. Because otherwise the enthusiasm of the new politicians will quickly disappear. This already happened with Hendrikus Velzing of Forum for Democracy in the last parliamentary period. “As an entrepreneur I make ten decisions in a day, but here they take weeks to make one decision,” he often sighed.
Provincial democracy is alive and kicking, as March 15 showed, with a high turnout and a large club of new MPs. Hopefully this doesn’t get bogged down in a paper bog.