He registered for the municipal elections at the last minute, just hours before the deadline. And now farmer Corné van Rooij is the second largest in Goirle with his brand new batch. “You can say it was quite successful, yes.”
On Thursday morning, Van Rooij is having breakfast. “It got late yesterday, but I can talk for a while,” he says, stirring his mug. Van Rooij is no stranger to the council. For thirteen years he was a councilor of the CDA in Goirle, but in 2019 he left the party.
“I was done with it. And when you’re no longer in politics, you start looking at it differently.” Van Rooij continues: “Then you see that politics is actually very distant. But you only see that when you are no longer in it. That is why we recently came up with the idea to set up a new party.”
That became the party Common Sense Goirle Riel. And it took four of the 19 seats this week, barely three months after it was founded. The result of ‘being close to the citizen’, according to Van Rooij.
The party was created five days before Christmas, exactly on the day of the deadline for municipal parties to participate in the elections. “That was on December 20, when we registered. Really at the very last”, says Corné.
More than a month later, the second important deadline presented itself: submitting the electoral list.
Van Rooij had not expected it himself, but the tax burden was large. Thirty people wanted to participate. This is remarkable for Goirlese standards. A party like the SP was not even able to find enough candidates in the same municipality to participate again at all. That while the party initially had two seats.
Among the applications for Common Sense Goirle Riel, there were also candidates who still had to turn twenty years old. “That was also surprising, yes. Of course we thought that was very nice, so many young people. There are now two 19-year-olds on number 3 and 4 on the electoral list.”
Van Rooij is referring to Teun van den Brand and Jelle van Loon, both still students. Are they really going to council? “That is the intention. They are smart guys and they want it themselves. But it could be that some changes will take place due to preference votes.”
But what are 19-year-olds doing in a city council? “They are both good smart guys. Teun in particular is really at the heart of society. You can send him a message.”
You can read updates about the elections in our live blog on Thursday.