The PvdA has betrayed its voters so many times that it will never make it on its own. I believe that Rutte II, the cabinet that was formed after and despite Diederik Samsom fiercely fighting the VVD in an election campaign, was the final blow for many people. Now that the PvdA has realized that they are and will remain a small party, they suddenly seek rapprochement with the little sister. And GroenLinks, which has always secretly kept lurking and squinting from the side, feels so flattered that it even dares to take the initiative again. They are not hungry for power, but they do get hungry now and then.
The embrace between PvdA and GroenLinks is getting more and more intense, we are now at the stage where they are not afraid to grab each other in public. Yesterday, prominent PvdA and GroenLinksers already became members of each other’s party, so that voters and members can get used to the fact that it is true love, that they will never let go of each other and that it is all wet after all. Everything to make the GroenLinksers forget that the big sister let them down at all-determining moments. The PvdA of 2023 is humble, because it now knows that it will never be able to stand up on its own again. They need the little sister, or rather her seats, but they don’t put it that way, they prefer to talk about the realization of ideals. Together, it is said, we are much more powerful. Perhaps the biggest. It loses one seat in the polls.
At village level, the PvdA has also suddenly climbed out of the ivory tower. In the municipality of Wormerland I occasionally meet a PvdA municipal councilor who then devotes his heart and soul to scrapping a parking space in favor of a terrace. And a prominent member (anti-squat) has also come to live there, who fights single-handedly against the expansion of the local industry. The fighting spirit drips from them, I like to avoid them. Not because I don’t support their good work and ideals, but because they love to talk about it. Deep down I feel for all those GroenLinksers, it’s over with operating in the margins. The PvdA members will soon gnaw into their party apparatus like beetles. They may be just as few, but know much better how to get up. Ultimately, Groen-Rood or whatever they are going to call that list combination will simply become a PvdA plus. It is not cooperation or fusion, but ordinary cannibalism. The eldest eats her younger sister.
Marcel van Roosmalen writes an exchange column with Ellen Deckwitz here.
A version of this article also appeared in the February 1, 2023 issue