‘D66, that is that elitist Randstad party’

As party leader in a rural municipality such as Noordoostpolder in Flevoland, Wim van Wegen is regularly asked: why are you with D66?

“We certainly have an image problem in the region,” says Van Wegen. “If I have to hand out flyers for D66, they’ll still think I’m a nice guy, they say. But D66…? Hmm Hmm. Then they start to look a bit dirty.” The name of party leader Sigrid Kaag sometimes comes up. “And you are a Randstad party, an elitist party.”

“You are destroying the farmers!”, as a D66 member you also hear, says Marieke Vellinga, former party leader in Súdwest Fryslân and now alderman on Vlieland.

D66 is also often seen in the Southeast Drenthe region as a party for prosperous, highly educated people, according to Joey Koops, party chairman in Emmen. People there are more often on social assistance, overweight or low literate, he says. “Then you are more quickly frustrated about a party if you have the impression that those people do not have your problems.”

Koop’s mother was a postman, his father a prison guard. If he tells that in Drenthe, he will reach people faster as a D66 member, he says. Then he says that D66 is also for “equality of opportunity.”

Van Wegen, Vellinga and Koops are among the driving forces behind the ‘R49’, a partnership of smaller local factions to better reach D66 in The Hague. “A counter-movement” that wants to strengthen ‘the region’ in the organization and vision of the party, says Van Wegen.

The name R49 refers to the 49 local factions, from Aalten to Zundert, who made an appeal in April 2021 to the then new parliamentary party. Message: Don’t forget the regional voter.

“Engage in dialogue with farmers and do so with an optimistic voice,” they wrote. Divide government money better among regional municipalities, maintain village schools, build enough starter homes and invest in new regional train connections.

Netherlands regional country

It led to a manifesto of seventeen pages in early 2022: Netherlands regional country. This was drawn up by the two D66 MPs from Friesland, Romke de Jong and Tjeerd de Groot, together with R49. They wanted to publish it “with a drum roll” and media attention, but then the Ukraine war broke out: bad timing.

At the last party congress in Rotterdam in November there was a regional session, which will also be followed up at the next congress. “The R49 should become the R89 or the R129 in a few years,” says Van Wegen. No, they do not have a ‘Calimero complex’, they want to ‘pro-actively’ anchor the region in the ‘dna of D66’.

On Saturday, D66 will kick off the campaign for provincial elections in Arnhem in March; then it should become clear how D66 will do in the region. But the electoral outlook is not so favourable.

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On average, D66 won just under 7 percent of the vote in the last six parliamentary elections since 1999. In North Holland and Utrecht the party invariably scored well above its own national average. In Friesland and Zeeland, that percentage is lower every time. Nationally, D66 is also losing in the current polls: 5 to 7 percentage points fewer votes than in the parliamentary elections last year.

Typical characteristics of D66 voters are a higher education and a higher income, says Asher van der Schelde of research agency I&O Research. That group of voters simply lives more often in the city. “In the Netherlands you see a line through the northern Randstad: from Haarlem to Amsterdam, to ‘t Gooi, Utrecht and then a little further to Nijmegen-Arnhem. That’s really one D66 belt.”

The representatives of D66 in The Hague themselves are not that national either. The MPs from outside the Randstad can be counted on one hand: five out of 24.

Rutger Schonis, for example, was the only Zeeland D66 member in The Hague since 1998, but he did not return to the list of candidates in 2021. He is now an alderman in Middelburg. More parties have a “Hague perspective” on the region, he says. “The distance The Hague-Middelburg has always been greater than Middelburg-The Hague.”

The current list of candidates for the Senate now includes five ‘regional candidates’ in the top 15. One of them, the Gelderland Member of Parliament Antoon Kanis, understands that the Randstad is better represented in The Hague. “The Amsterdam department of D66 is larger than that of Gelderland; more active members come from there.”

Nitrogen approach

What is sensitive in the countryside is the nitrogen approach with which D66 profiles itself within the right-wing coalition with VVD, CDA and ChristenUnie. The program item ‘Halveer de Veestapel’, often expressed by agriculture spokesman Tjeerd de Groot, has not gone down well in the regions.

Van Wegen: “I think that statement – ​​and I also let Tjeerd de Groot know this personally at the time – has caused polarization and that means you miss the target. In any case, this did not help us with the elections. I come from an agricultural area. It has cost us members and it has been repeated to me many times during campaigning.”

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“We are a party that identifies matters that are sometimes a bit sensitive,” De Groot responds. The nitrogen problem is too big and requires national direction, he thinks. “That means you have to deliver a message that hits hard.” At the same time, D66 will come up with solutions, he says: more than 24 billion euros until 2035 from the coalition for the reform of the agricultural sector to sustainable ‘circular agriculture’.

De Groot understands that the nitrogen approach in the region is “very exciting”. “I say to every region that calls me: guys, if I have to explain things, I will come by.”

Another annoyance for the regional D66 members is the skewed distribution of the 7.5 billion euros for infrastructure in the coming years. The majority goes to the Randstad conurbation (approximately 65 percent) and urban areas in North Brabant and Gelderland.

Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe together only received 323 million euros (4 percent) – after which the House of Representatives added money for a new train aqueduct at Leeuwarden, the ‘railway infarction’ between Meppel and Zwolle and an exploration of the future Lower Saxony line between Enschede and Groningen.

Gelderland has also come off badly, says Member of Parliament Kanis. “We received 115 million euros for a double track to the Achterhoek and the widening of the Rhine bridge at Rhenen. A stark contrast to the billions going for Amsterdam.”

Moderate public transport to cities means fewer jobs, homes and people in the region, say the people behind R49. “Then D66 can shout very loudly: less car, more bicycles, and things like that,” says Van Wegen. “It works fantastic in Utrecht and Amsterdam. In the north you are forced to take the car to work.”

The money for infrastructure follows the provincial housing plans, they argue at D66 in The Hague. And in the coalition agreement, as much as 3 billion euros has been made available for the future Lelylijn train between Lelystad and Groningen.

“The largest investment in public transport in times is simply very much needed,” responds Member of Parliament Romke de Jong. “I come from a community myself [Opsterland] with sixteen villages, I know how important it is.”

With a shortage of basic facilities – work, schools, houses – typical D66 themes in the region sometimes do not land, says Koops from Emmen. It is better to talk about a lower energy bill now than about a climate-neutral distant future. Koops: “Because many people here have to deal with what they can get on the table today.”

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Or the plea against Zwarte Piet: “Behind the scenes, we have been working for years to make Zwarte Piet less visible,” says Koops. “We succeeded, from this year there will be no more Zwarte Piet at the entry into Emmen. But not because of major or heavy discussions in the council about progressiveness.”

“Diversity is very important,” says Van Wegen from Noordoostpolder: “But what I hear around me is: nice, diversity and woke, but when will the N50 be tackled?” The N50 from Zwolle to Emmeloord, largely two-lane, is known as a ‘death road’. “If it had been in the Randstad, it would have been solved long ago, I think.”

Region key

In fact, all national policy and investments should first be weighed up between urban and rural areas, suggests D66 member Vellinga. Something like the ‘Wadden test’, a motion by the Frisian PvdA member of parliament Lutz Jacobi from 2008, to see whether new regulations could be economically, ecologically or administratively harmful to the Wadden Islands. “Not a Wadden test, but a regional test.”

She cites preschool childcare as an example: in sparsely populated regions, such as Vlieland, it can be a solution to place three and four year olds together in one group. “Not allowed according to national rules, the GGD says,” according to Vellinga. “While we still want to offer all Dutch people the same basic facilities.”

How are things going with the R49? Peter de Kraker, D66 party leader in Terneuzen and one of the signatories, has the idea that the movement “has fizzled out a bit”. Martin Wissekerke, his colleague in Goes, believes that regional politicians should rely on their own strength. “The D66 story about climate and environment is not elitist”. he says “It also appeals to ordinary Dutch people.”

According to Van Wegen, Vellinga and Koops, D66 in The Hague has taken up the call well, and the dialogue with the region must be continued. Van Wegen: “At the moment, everything is a little too often put on the plate of the region with a Randstad perspective”. “Don’t just write policy for the region, but do it with the region,” says Koops. “It’s not us versus them, but we do have our own way of doing things.”