Geert Wilders left in a car immediately after the recordings of the SBS 6 debate and there is RTL reporter Jaïr Ferwerda not amused about. “I would have liked to talk to him,” he grumbles.
For the first time during the current election campaign, Geert Wilders entered into a debate with other party leaders. Where? At Het Debat van Nederland on SBS 6. The press was massively interested and RTL reporter Jaïr Ferwerda was also there to wait for the party leaders afterwards. Who did he not get to speak to? The leader of the PVV.
‘PVV is nothing more’
Jaïr only talks about Wilders with the remaining party leaders. “Madam Yesilgöz, in debate with Geert Wilders for the first time, how was that?”, he asks VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz.
Yesilgöz: “As expected, I think: predictable.”
Jaïr: “You very clearly called the PVV ‘one man with a Twitter account’.”
Yesilgöz: “That’s it. That’s all the PVV is.”
Rolling eyes
Jaïr also speaks with CDA’s Henri Bontenbal. “I saw you roll your eyes every now and then when Wilders really threw pieces of meat into the arena again. How do you deal with that?”
Bontenbal: “Yes, my non-verbal communication is always quite clear, right? That’s right.”
Jaïr: “I think it’s great of Wilders, he knows how to use certain one-liners… The others need more words, you notice.”
Easiest one-liner
Bontenbal looks at this differently. “What do you ask of a politician? Isn’t he the one who tells you that he is the best politician with the easiest one-liner or the funniest sneer?”
Jaïr: “Yes, but that is a bit of the mediacracy you live in, no matter how you look at it.”
Then to Frans Timmermans: “It seems as if you need many more words than Wilders.”
Timmermans: “Yes, but that is the advantage of a populist. Every complex problem is simplified, because a populist does not have to provide solutions. He only has to shout something and that is his method.”
Wilders in car
Jaïr did not get to speak to Wilders. “Afterwards you politely speak to the press, but Wilders is already in the car, right?”
Yesilgöz: “Yes, so draw your own conclusion, right?”
Debate leader Wilfred Genee: “Yes, that surprises me too, because I was walking with him, and then I saw him jump into a car. I thought: hey, that’s strange, he leaves immediately. I don’t really understand why that was either.”
Timmermans: “Yes, you all accept it.”
Jaïr: “Yes, no, yes, I would have liked to talk to him, but we were behind this and he had already left.”
Scarcity
It’s just Wilders’ tactics, according to Timmermans. “What I mean to say, and we have been seeing this for years, and we both know it: he creates a scarcity and if he then breaks through that scarcity, many journalists are happy that he comes to talk and then he also gets his platform.”
Finally, Bontenbal: “I think you should just speak to the press. Even Jaïr. Maybe he had very good reasons for it. I don’t know, I can’t look into his head.”