Why is Frans Timmermans not in Op1? Or at Humberto? Or Today Inside? For the time being, the leader of GroenLinks and PvdA is relatively invisible in the run-up to the elections.
The House of Representatives elections are getting closer and we are seeing more and more politicians and party leaders on television. While the great woman on the right, Dilan Yesilgöz, gave her first major interview on Friday evening in Op1, we have not yet seen the leader of the left, Frans Timmermans, anywhere. What’s up with that?
French in the country
Political reporter Thomas van Groningen also finds it striking, he says at the table On 1. “I want to talk about that a little more, because a GroenLinks member asked me: where is Frans Timmermans? ‘I see everyone at that table with you, so I see politicians and party leaders popping up everywhere, but Frans Timmermans? I haven’t seen him yet!’”
Thomas immediately dived in. “Well, we started looking into that and what do we hear? He is in the country, so it could happen when you are somewhere that you come across Frans Timmermans. They say in the PvdA and GroenLinks campaign that they deliberately start off a bit low-key and the theory behind that is that he still needs to acclimatize a bit.”
Kitchen tables
Acclimatizing in the Netherlands, Thomas explains. “After all that international violence he comes out of. So he sits at kitchen tables, he talks to people and ultimately the intention is that he will kick off his campaign in a big way on Sunday (today, ed.), and it will be noticeable that he will immediately leave abroad next week.”
He continues: “I suspect because at GroenLinks and PvdA they also want to portray an image of: this is the statesman, the man who has international experience.”
Canada
Where does Frans go then? “He is going to Canada, among others, to meet Trudeau there. Left leaders are together there and that is where he is going.”
Quite striking, Thomas thinks. “The PvdA-GroenLinks campaign therefore starts in Canada and not in the Netherlands. That is remarkable.”