The elections have only just ended, but in Bergen op Zoom the first councilor has already packed his bags. Aydin Akkaya was on the list for GBWP, but is now stepping down from Wednesday’s big winner and continuing as a one-man faction. “The party destroyed me.”
The cause of the split with the Municipal Interests of Employees Party (GBWP) is a bit further behind us. Last November, Akkaya was discredited for allegedly abusing his position. Although, he says, it is a bit more nuanced. “A fellow councilor asked me for help. An apartment building was built next to his house, so that he was in danger of losing privacy in his garden.”
Akkaya then entered into talks with the project developer. “Not as a councillor, but as a good friend. We eventually came to the conclusion that the problem could be solved by building a roof in the backyard.” It was agreed with the developer that he would compensate the costs for this, about ten thousand euros.
All’s well that ends well, you might think. Until the project developer lodged a complaint with the municipality. Akkaya and his colleague allegedly abused their political power. An investigation later showed that the duo did nothing wrong legally, but the rest of the council strongly condemned their actions.
However, according to Akkaya, that is not where the problem lies. “I sincerely apologize. I entered that conversation with the best of intentions, but perhaps it was not so useful as a politician.”
What does sting him is how his own party subsequently sidetracked him. “I am completely demonized. And there was a double standard. I was put back to place seven on the list, while my colleague Patrick van der Velden was just back in second place.” Van der Velden resigned as alderman last year, after he spent corona support money for the cultural sector on projects of the municipality itself.
“When I heard that, it hurt me so much,” Akkaya says emotionally. “In the end, shortly before the election, I decided that things would no longer work between me and GBWP. If the voter had punished me, I would have stopped. But now I have so many votes, that I can continue with straight back.”
But then as a one-man faction. “The party was already aware of this before the elections. Then I also left the group app.” According to Akkaya, there is no question of voter fraud. “People really don’t vote for me for the election programme. That is my own following, which I have built up over all those years. You will see: in four years I will get as many votes again. Only with my own party.”
Arjan van der Weegen, group leader of GBWP, announced earlier today Broadcasting Southwest know that the decision does not come as a surprise: “The party and Aydin have not come closer together in the recent period. Aydin has drawn his conclusions from this and I think they are the right ones. I wish him every success for the future.”
Due to the split from Akkaya, the Bergse municipal council – which consists of 33 seats in total – now has 14 different factions.