A conflict arose on Friday in the three-member Senate faction of the Party for the Animals over who is in charge. The faction has been split into two camps, both of which claim to want to continue as the Party for the Animals (PvdD).
In an email to members, the party board writes that faction leader Ingrid Visseren-Hamakers will continue on her own. The two other senators, Niko Koffeman and Peter Nicolaï, say that they continue on behalf of the Party for the Animals and that Visseren-Hamakers has “split off” and continues on an individual basis.
The three members of the Senate met on Friday afternoon for the first time since senator and founder of the party Niko Koffeman in an interview with NRC announced that he has resigned his party membership due to an excessive focus on “people issues” such as Gaza.
After Koffeman’s departure as a PvdD member, Visseren-Hamakers reportedly told him that he could no longer be part of the Senate faction. The party board wrote this in an email to members. “Unfortunately, Peter Nicolaï has indicated that he is with him [Koffeman, red.] wants to remain in one faction,” says Visseren-Hamakers, who is quoted in the email. “Following this step, the Senate faction of the Party for the Animals will split from the Party for the Animals with effect from today.”
Disbarred
“My commitment has always been to keep things together,” explains Peter Nicolaï in a telephone conversation with NRC. “If Niko were to implement the election manifesto, and that’s what he wanted, I wouldn’t know why he couldn’t be in the faction. We’ve been working very well together for six years.” Legally, it is possible to no longer be a member of a party, but still be a member of that party’s faction, says Nicolaï, a former lawyer and professor of administrative law.
During Friday’s party meeting, Nicolaï decided to appoint himself as the new party leader in order to keep the three-member PvdD faction together. According to Nicolaï, Koffeman agreed to this, so “a majority agreed with that.” Afterwards, Visseren-Hamakers, PvdD faction leader since February this year, is said to have announced that she wanted the faction to split.
After the meeting, Nicolaï received a message from the party board that he had been expelled as a party member, he says. A spokesperson for the Party for the Animals cannot confirm this NRCbecause this is “privacy-sensitive information”. Nicolaï says he will appeal against the expulsion. A spokesperson for the Senate told the ANP news agency that the House is not yet aware of any split and that all three politicians are officially still part of the faction.
Party leader Esther Ouwehand writes in the member email that she is “proud” of “how Ingrid has positioned herself in this complicated situation.”
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