In June of the previous year, three days after Pieter Omtzigt had canceled his CDA membership, CDA leader Wopke Hoekstra had looked ahead to this Wednesday’s municipal elections in an online meeting with members. At the time, the CDA was deeply divided internally and members had expressed their concerns about the local elections. “It would be a sweet thing for all of us, me too, to win,” Hoekstra said at the time. “There is nothing more helpful for unity and self-confidence than winning.” The then interim party chairman Marnix van Rij – he is now State Secretary in the Rutte IV cabinet – had described the elections as a “test case” for the party.
On Wednesday night, that test case did not seem to work out well for the CDA. The Christian Democrats lose – in the city but also in the countryside where the party has always been the largest in many places. The party has lost that in some places on the periphery. Most striking is the municipality of Tubbergen – where the CDA has already won three municipal elections in a row and had an absolute majority in the council for the past eight years. The party has halved there since Wednesday. Almost all the lost seats went to a recently founded, local party.
Recurring disappointment
Losing elections is now a recurring disappointment for the CDA. Four years ago, after the local elections, the party had the most seats – in percentage terms the VVD had gained more votes. And since then, the Christian Democrats have lost election after election: in 2019 four seats in the Senate and one in the European Parliament. And last year, in the elections to the House of Representatives, the CDA lost another four seats. The counter is now at five, because Pieter Omtzigt split off last year to continue as an independent Member of Parliament. That departure has left deep wounds in the outer areas.
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On Wednesday, there was initially still hope in the air when CDA employees saw the first exit polls on television screens. Less than a week ago, they had been gauged for a halving. And that didn’t seem to be happening on Wednesday. Campaign leader and CDA MP Derk Boswijk said after the first polls, provided that “anything could still happen”, that he was “relieved”. “Somehow I still have hope that this will be a consistent line with more exit polls.”
The CDA sometimes lost a seat in the first projections, but kept the number of seats it had in other places. The screens with the polls went off when a visibly relieved Hoekstra came up with his reaction. “Of course I would have loved to keep all our seats. That’s not in it. At the same time, the result seems better than expected.” Just then it appeared from the exit polls that the party would halve in the council of Breda and disappear from that of Amsterdam. In the results that came in after that, the CDA mainly lost. Wopke Hoekstra had already left the building by then.