Vera Bergkamp was totally unprepared for it when it turned out on Friday evening that the entire administrative leadership of the House of Representatives would stop working. In an abandoned House of Representatives building, she admitted to a handful of journalists that she had ‘been robbed’ and spoke about the unprecedented lashing of the civil servants towards the President of the House and the executive committee of the House (the presidium). Clerk Simone Roos criticized the political leadership for not making sufficient efforts to protect her and the rest of the Management Team when they were drawn into the political debate about the investigation into possible transgressive behavior by former Speaker of the House Khadija Arib.
Now Bergkamp must find a way out of this precarious issue. “I want to start gluing the shards,” she said Friday evening. As chairman, Bergkamp had been under pressure for some time, but then because of her not always convincing performances as law enforcement officer in the parliamentary debates. Now that the investigation into the complaints from two anonymous letters under her responsibility has been completely derailed, she is not thinking of resigning.
Unprecedented harsh criticism
However, she will have to do something with the unrest surrounding the investigation into Arib for weeks. Complaints about the way in which she treated civil servants during the time she was chairman had been known for some time to the presidium, which also included Bergkamp at the time, but nothing was ever done about it. The bomb only exploded at the end of September, when it leaked that the presidency was still conducting an external investigation into Arib.
The objections of MPs were almost immediate: why did Arib have to learn from the newspaper that her fellow MPs are using such a heavy means against her? After that, the criticism about the approach of the research only increased. Why did the presidency only intervene now? Why were the actions of the presidency and the top officials not part of the investigation? Why wasn’t Arib allowed to know exactly what the complaints against her were? And what was the purpose of calling in a detective agency after Arib had already left the Chamber with a silent drum?
The chaotic parliamentary meeting on the Arib affair on 1 November was indicative of the fierceness of the debate: Bergkamp had visible difficulties in maintaining order, while MPs shouting at each other demanded clarification about the secret investigation assignment.
Damage to all involved
The damage for all involved is now so great that it will be difficult to ‘keep things together’, as Bergkamp himself would like. Arib has furiously said goodbye and is sitting at home disappointed, people with complaints about the former chairman don’t feel heard, the top officials stop working and the image of the House of Representatives institute has been seriously damaged.
Next week, Bergkamp will have to convince the Chamber and the 600 civil servants who work in the Chamber building that she is the right person to repair the damage, regain the confidence of the civil servants and restore peace. It will require extreme helmsmanship to get the file back into calmer waters.
Wednesday will be the most exciting day for Bergkamp. Then she will have to account for the chaos that has arisen in the so-called ‘committee for the working method’. She is most vulnerable when the debate drifts further and further away from the research, but shifts to a discussion about her functioning.
Bergkamp has not made it any easier for herself in that regard by announcing that she wants the House to determine by vote whether the investigation into her predecessor should continue. The D66 member is thus very emphatically linking the future of her presidency to continuing the investigation. And so the matter becomes even more political than it already had become.
Lost confidence in Bergkamp
A bad sign is that the Works Council has already withdrawn its confidence in Bergkamp. “I don’t think Bergkamp can glue the shards anymore,” said chairman Michel Meerts on Saturday news hour. ‘The damage is too great. There is no longer any trust from the civil service.’ The Works Council foreman would prefer that both Bergkamp and the entire presidium be replaced.
In the meantime, former Speaker of the House Gerdi Verbeet looks with increasing amazement at the crisis in parliament where she once held sway. She finds it “complicated” that officials want to interfere with the composition of the presidium, she said in Sunday. Buitenhof. The fact that Registrar Roos is resigning from her duties because she did not feel protected by the political leadership can also count on little understanding from Verbeet. ‘You have to like politics a bit and be able to deal with the unrest that comes with it.’
The most plausible way out of this impasse – and also the best possible scenario for Bergkamp – is that the investigation into Arib continues, but that its lead is completely removed from Bergkamp and the presidency and instead is transferred to an independent third party. . This avoids the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The coming days will show whether this route is acceptable to all parties.