Not a political statement or vague slogan on an election poster, but an invitation to come and have dinner. ‘Always fun at snack bar Wimke. Come here and have something to eat!’ can be read on the poster of Wim van Rooij from Oijen. He is in 23rd place on the list of the local party VDG in the municipality of Oss and hopes to get into the council with preferential votes with his message. “I only get good reactions to it.”
Wim van Rooij is better known in the wider area of Oijen as Wimkefrom the snack bar of the same name in the village and he is making good progress as influencer on TikTok.
His striking message on the poster for the upcoming municipal elections may appeal to the average follower of VDG on Instagram, if we judge by the number of likes. Wim’s poster has now exceeded a hundred, many of his fellow party members have to make do with a few dozen.
Does his message belong on an election poster? Yes, that is possible, Wimke thinks. “Of course it is real, it is not a joke,” he said on Tuesday in a conversation with Omroep Brabant presenter Ronny Balk in the Afslag Zuid program. “There is always a lot of discussion going on in a chip shop. So the conversations about politics come automatically. It doesn’t all have to be so serious, does it? It can also be quite fun.”
According to Wimke, his text on the poster is not a disguised advertising message. “We already do a lot of advertising. People may think it’s advertising, but I don’t think so. With VDG we stand for housing and quality of life. I also talk about that with the people in the cafeteria.”
The text on his poster did not come out of the blue, Van Rooij explains. “If someone shares something positive on the internet, I respond, for example: ‘You should do that. And then go to the Wimke snack bar!'”
“It’s about quality of life and living, traffic and transport in the villages here is minimal.”
According to the snack bar owner, there is a lot of discussion about political topics in his cafeteria: “It’s about quality of life and housing, traffic and transport in the durpkes here is minimal. This also applies to care for older people.”
One thing is certain: Wim’s message stands out among fellow party members, who all have their own election poster. ‘Don’t complain, but carry it’, writes Roy Thijssen, number 30. Or: ‘VDG, the proven sensible choice. What else?’, says the poster of number 42 Maria van Lith.
Van Rooij hopes for a large number of preferential votes for a place in the Osse municipal council. “I am closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so I can make time for it. I hope that I will get into the council with preferential votes,” he says, laughing.
Wimke is a celebrity in Oijen on the VDG list, in Eindhoven local celebrity and football icon Willy van de Kerkhof is on the CDA list. This is how he announced his candidacy:
Details of election campaign
Have you spotted anything special in the run-up to the upcoming municipal elections? Send the editors of Omroep Brabant a tip via [email protected].
