The SBS6 party leader debate at the end of last week is still keeping people busy. There is a lot of uncertainty about the questioners, who were closer to the party leaders present during and afterwards than you would initially think as an unsuspecting viewer. The overall conclusion after the debate was that PVV leader Geert Wilders was the big winner of the evening.
“There is so much poverty in the Netherlands. Not normal. And that just keeps getting more and more and more. Why don’t you join the rest of the parties and raise the minimum wage. Why not?” During the SBS6 party leader debate, Cindy Slaper-Van der Werff asks Pieter Omtzigt why he does not want to increase the minimum wage – one of the PVV’s pet peeves.
Slaper-Van der Werff throws another PVV spearhead into the group. “Mr. Timmermans, I am chronically ill. Throughout the year. I pay 385 euros, every year. I can’t pay it with just benefits. And many with me. You don’t want to know how much poverty there is in the Netherlands. I look around and I could cry. That bad. The next four years is too late. We’re too late!”
It could of course be a coincidence that someone asks two questions that play into the hands of the PVV. It is certain that Slaper-Van der Werff from Zaandam has sympathy for Wilders’ party. On October 27, she posted the following message on her Facebook page: “If every Zaankanter votes for Peter van Haasen… PVV list number 33. Our star will finally enter the House of Representatives.”
In addition, a photo of Slaper-Van der Werff is soon shared on social media, showing her on a plane with Geert Wilders. “I met Geert by chance when I was on the plane to Hungary where my mother lives,” she says. “I saved for a year, Wizz Airlines, it’s cheap. My daughter came along to surprise my mother.”
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She was in the audience at the invitation of the editors of Debate of the Netherlands, she says when asked. “A day before Budget Day I had an interview with Heart of the Netherlands. They had asked if I believed in politics. “First see, then believe, I don’t like it now. The editors thought that was so strong that they invited me.”
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“Nah… this is advertising.” Geert Wilders cannot believe his ears during the same debate. A questioner from the audience has just praised VVD party leader Dilan Yesilgöz.
“Yes, this goes a long way.” says the present leader of New Social Contract leader Pieter Omtzigt or presenter Wilfred Genee. It is not clearly audible which of the two it was.
The surprise of Wilders, and many of the 1.4 million viewers, is not surprising. This was not about just any random questioner, but about Frank van Gool. This founder and CEO of OTTO Work Force donated 100,000 euros to Yesilgöz’s party.
When asked, Genee says that he did not interfere with the selection of the audience: “I was quite busy with other broadcasts.”
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While the whole of the Netherlands thinks they are watching a political debate with voters in the audience who can ask extemporaneous questions to the party leaders present Yesilgöz (VVD), Wilders (PVV), Omtzigt (New Social Contract) and Timmermans (GroenLinks PvdA), it turns out that Slaper-Van der Werff and Van Gool are not the only ones who have a relationship with one of the party leaders.
What has the Netherlands been looking at?
Criticism about Van Gool’s double hat was already heard during the debate on social media. The question of what the Netherlands has actually been watching is being asked more and more often in the days following the debate, not least because more members of the public are playing a notable role during the debate.
The participating party leaders were only aware of the themes, says a spokesperson for Talpa, the owner of SBS6. “They did not know in advance the questions that would be asked and were not informed by the editors who would ask them.”
How those questioners ended up in the audience: “The questioners were approached by the editors and selected on the basis of the four themes. They all deal with one or more themes in their daily lives. Party preference played no role in the selection of the questioners.”
Finally, Talpa states, “it was never suggested that these were floating or completely objective voters. That is also impossible: everyone has political views and preferences, but not everyone is transparent about them.”
Volunteer and questioner
Photographer Harm van Leuken from Budel was also asked by the editors to be present, says presenter Genee. Van Leuken says by telephone that he is a neighborhood watch and that two weeks before the debate a camera crew came by to make a report. He says he has been a volunteer with the PVV for years: among other things, he sticks posters for the party.
BVTV agrees with the statement of the editors of Debate of the Netherlands. Whether it was an advantage that the VVD and the PVV had question-asking supporters in the audience will have to be seen at the ballot box next Wednesday. What is certain is that the debate has done Wilders no harm, given the polls.
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