Despite serious doubts in the opposition, BBB candidate Henk Emmens was elected deputy of Groningen on Wednesday evening. No less than 18 of the 43 members of parliament find his controversial tweets incompatible with his new position in the provincial government.
With a narrow majority of 25 votes, Emmens received the benefit of the doubt from the States. After a day that started for the BBB candidate with deep apologies for the tweets he shared from climate skeptics, conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers, he was able to take office in the evening in the new board of BBB, PvdA, Groninger Belang and ChristenUnie.
For the new coalition partners, the stocking was over after Emmens explicitly distanced himself from his controversial Twitter messages in the morning. Together, these four have a majority of 23 seats.
Unforgiving opposition: controversial tweets damage confidence
But the opposition parties are less forgiving. They have no confidence that the BBB’er can separate the views he has shared and liked via social media from his administrative task.
Emmens himself emphatically distances himself from the content of the Twitter messages. He says he only shared them ‘to start the discussion’. On Wednesday he called his Twitter behavior “stupid” and “not befitting a deputy”.
But almost the entire opposition, with the exception of FvD and PVV, doubt whether the kneeling is so sincere. They fear that all the publicity fuss could undermine his position as director and thus harm Groningen’s interests.
According to research by city blog Sikkom, Emmens shared messages calling for the ‘arrest’ of nitrogen minister Christianne van de Wal, the minister with whom he now has to negotiate as an agricultural deputy on behalf of the province.
Parties from GroenLinks and SP to VVD and CDA take that seriously. Emmens has deliberately and consistently shared messages “that are at odds with the democratic legal order and have a policing character”, VVD party leader Erik Jan Bennema told him. In doing so, he contributes to “a toxic and unsafe climate.”
,,The only apologies only came after publications in the media and probing conversations”, Bennema notes. “Unfortunately, this shows that his judgment is insufficient for a provincial government.”
GroenLinks captain Nadja Siersema-Orsel passes the same judgment. “It seems that he has never experienced his tweet as a problem before.” Her group therefore feels “too much doubt about the compatibility of his vision and his functioning as a deputy.”
(More later)