To become the new Prime Minister for Home Affairs, with a Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs. Caroline van der Plas would like that if her BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) wins the parliamentary elections at the end of this year. “I think the Netherlands needs someone who is not always busy with Washington or Indonesia or at the World Economic Forum,” she says. A domestic prime minister for “a reconstruction of society”, who does something against, for example, the dichotomy and hardening.
Whether such a duo-premiership is also possible under constitutional law, Van der Plas first wants to discuss this with experts. “I’m just going to think about it this summer and I’m going to make a decision about it this summer.” She already has several candidates in mind for a premiership for foreign affairs. “I have consulted those people, but they still have to think about it themselves.”
Ordinary people
Running a country doesn’t seem that difficult when you hear Van der Plas talk. The Dutch are “ordinary people with very ordinary wishes,” she said this week during the parliamentary debate about the fall of the cabinet. They want a house, a job, good care, a local bus, and the occasional holiday, a BBQ and a beer in the sports canteen.
It is high time for a new cabinet that does not ‘flood’ such an uncomplicated country with rules and obligations, said Van der Plas. BBB wants a „noaber state” – derived from the lot value noobship– with a government as an involved neighbour, which does keep an appropriate distance from the property boundary. “BBB is ready for that.”
Is the party, which has only been in the House for two years with one seat, really ready to govern? It was the big question in the Provincial Council elections in March, in which BBB defeated all other parties. It is again the question in the parliamentary elections at the end of this year, in which BBB is polled as the largest.
In those two years, BBB has experienced unprecedented growth. The party now has about 14,000 members, says board chairman Erik Stegink. The party occupies approximately 140 seats in the twelve provincial councils, nearly 120 seats in the water boards, and 16 seats in the Senate.
“I myself have the feeling that a landslide is about to take place,” says campaign leader Henk Vermeer about the parliamentary elections. “If you look at the polls, we have to take into account twenty to thirty seats anyway. But at the Provincial Council we beat the polls. Why couldn’t that happen again?”
BBB therefore already has one long list with a hundred potential candidates for the parliamentary party, says Vermeer. Hundreds of unsolicited applications have been received in recent months – also for volunteer or policy work, according to Van der Plas. And after the fall of the cabinet, aspiring MPs can register until 17 July. In September, party members may then express their views on a final electoral list with sixty to eighty names.
Who they are, BBB cannot say anything about that at the moment. It is no secret that Van der Plas would like to welcome independent Member of Parliament Pieter Omtzigt to BBB. They have an appointment soon, she says. But Omtzigt’s spokesman says he is not interested. “Pieter is not thinking about joining the BBB,” she says.
The selection committee for candidate MPs is headed by BBB board member Jan Brok, a former poultry farmer from Twente. Unlike the first electoral list with 26 candidates from 2021, BBB now looks broader than – especially – farmers. Citizens must also be well represented in the group. Van der Plas: “Of course we also have a great need for other specialists: healthcare, finance, justice and security, foreign affairs.”
Candidates who will soon be lower on the electoral list must also take a seat into account, says Vermeer. “We really have to do a very good quality selection, and when in doubt, not put someone in place 24. You just shouldn’t do that.”
Inexperience
But that selection is under time pressure due to the fall of the cabinet, he acknowledges. The inexperience has sometimes already got the young party into trouble. BBB became the largest in Utrecht and North Brabant in March, but the party was sidelined in the coalition formation. The Groningen candidate-deputy Henk Emmens of BBB recently became discredited about it like of tweets against corona measures, and distanced himself from his likes. A Groningen member of parliament recently gave up his seat after a fuss about a Twitter quarrel and tweets about conspiracy theories.
How will BBB prevent such slips in the House of Representatives? “In any case, because you are looking for a different type of people,” says Van der Plas. “The House of Representatives is really different from the Provincial Council. In the Provincial Council you have a bit more room to put people who have less experience on a list, because they can gain experience there.” For the House of Representatives, BBB pays extra attention to network, media experience and, for example, stress resistance, she says.
Read also: Out and about with Caroline van der Plas: ‘Farmers have not given up hope yet’
At the Provincial Council, BBB screened candidates themselves on their social media use. “But we didn’t really realize that the likes could become a thing,” says Van der Plas.
She also regrets that some media or journalists seem to be out to ‘get’ someone. No group can give full guarantees about group members, according to Van der Plas. As an example, she cites former D66 MP Sidney Smeets, who resigned in 2021 after allegations of sexual misconduct. “I assume that there has also been screened there. Well, eventually something comes up. Yes, that is very annoying.”
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper on July 12, 2023.