It is undoubtedly a smart move by Femke Halsema to put Jolande Sap forward as party leader of GroenLinks when she suddenly left politics in The Hague in December 2010. An economist who knows his stuff is an advantage during the great financial crisis.
Two years later, the world looks different. GroenLinks is shattered after the elections in 2012, Sap leaves The Hague through the back door. This is not so much due to her knowledge and skills, but to the personal relationships within GroenLinks, in which she also plays her part, of course. Those relations have soured thoroughly in two years, and that has not gone unnoticed.
Now Jolande Sap (59) returns to The Hague. Not as a politician, but as a manager. She was asked by Ernst Kuipers, Minister of Health, to set up the Social Impact Team as a ‘quartermaster’ and then to lead it.
That MIT will soon advise the cabinet, should corona flare up again, on ‘the social, societal and economic impact of corona measures’. At MIT, people with social and economic expertise will be seated next to Sap.
MIT will stand next to the already existing Outbreak Management Team (OMT) and will advise ‘in parallel to this on the broader social impact of proposed measures’, Kuipers announced. MIT can also provide unsolicited advice. When OMT and MIT explain their advice at press conferences or in the House of Representatives, Jolande Sap will be standing next to Jaap van Dissel, the chairman of the OMT.
Kuipers praises both her ‘political and administrative experience’. ‘With this background, she can bridge the gap between the different perspectives that must converge at MIT.’
Sick relationships
This can raise eyebrows. The last public memory of Sap is her departure from The Hague. In 2012, the party leadership lost confidence in her after a series of incidents. GroenLinks suffered an election defeat that year and retained four of the ten seats, after Sap won an unsavory party leader election from Tofik Dibi. Not exactly what is expected of a bridge builder.
Such a party implosion is blamed on the leader, Sap in this case. But the implosion is the result of sore personal relationships in the GroenLinks faction with clashing egos. The faction board has not spoken to each other for a long time, said Ineke van Gent at the time, then a member of parliament and deputy party chairman. “There wasn’t the right chemistry, let me put it this way.” Add to that the pressure of the political handiwork in the House of Representatives and the attention that problems receive in a fraction, and there is a toxic mixture.
Political talent
The first years of Sap in the House of Representatives are just so promising. In 2008 she is interim in the House as successor to Wijnand Duyvendak. He suddenly leaves when he publishes a booklet in which he tells about his burglary at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the eighties. Juice falls right into the butter. The discussion about Duyvendak and leftist craziness in the 1980s is stifled by the bankruptcy of the bank Lehman Brothers in the US, the starting signal for the global financial crisis.
As an economist, Sap quickly finds her niche in the Chamber. The parliamentary press proclaimed her a political talent in 2009. The highlight of her political work is the participation of GroenLinks in the emergency budget for 2013 that is being put together after the fall of the Rutte I cabinet by VVD, CDA, CU, D66 and GroenLinks – the ‘Spring Agreement’. Sap dares to make choices, although some are highly resented, such as the increase in the state pension age, which is stated in that agreement and will be implemented as of 2013.
After her ignominious departure from The Hague, Sap disappears behind the scenes for the general public. Such a blow to the soul requires scrambling up. Juice embarks on a series of behind-the-scenes features, leading her to pop up in the 2015 and 2017 Volkskrantlist of most influential Dutch people. She is then a member of the Supervisory Board of KPN and the accountancy firm KPMG. Sap will also remain active in The Hague, for example for the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. During the negotiations on the Prevention Agreement, she leads the ‘smoke table’ that must formulate measures against smoking. That work and the contacts confirm Sap’s previously established reputation as a substantively strong negotiator. Such that Kuipers is now pushing her forward to advise on new corona measures next to Jaap van Dissel, if necessary.
Jolande Juice in three quotes
‘When I made my entrance in September 2008, the Budget Memorandum spoke hopefully of a broad concept of prosperity and the national debt was at a historically low level of 40 percent. Now that I am leaving in October 2012, that broad concept of prosperity has completely disappeared behind the horizon and the national debt with a record level of 72 percent again demands all our attention. It would be too much of an honor to attribute this development to my financial spokesmanship and political leadership.” (farewell letter of the House of Representatives)
‘I can be very directive, especially when results can be achieved. But leadership is not something you do alone. You must be granted it and you must be able to grow.’ (Interview with de Volkskrant, 2012)
‘A dream has come true, I feel like a Sunday child in politics. From the civil service I know how politics works, I have the substantive baggage and I know how to choose carefully. Everything falls into place in the room. I’m not afraid and I feel secure.’ (Interview with de Volkskrant, 2010)