Hi Avinash, does the criticism of PvdA and GroenLinks members correspond in substance?
‘The PvdA members mainly criticize the process: it is fast, too hasty and too much top-down. They believe that you should first ask yourself what a merger does to the identity of the party. According to them, the PvdA is still a party with the potential to become a broad popular movement. We are not against a merger per se, the members write, but it must be preceded by a careful process.
‘The opponents within GroenLinks who have now written an opinion piece seem to have nothing to do with the PvdA at all. The PvdA has made a number of things more difficult for their generation, they believe. For example, they point out that the boss of Schiphol comes from the PvdA, while aviation is very sensitive at GroenLinks. In addition, the letter writers talk about mayors who violate human rights. That refers to mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb, whose city has been reprimanded by the UN for its housing policy.
‘It sounds as if the letter writers of GroenLinks don’t think the PvdA is worthy enough to work with. That does not mean that all critics within GroenLinks think that way. There are also GroenLinks members who are against the merger because they think the process is going too fast.’
The criticism from the PvdA angle seems to me easier to take away than that of GroenLinks critics. How do the leaders of the PvdA view this?
‘The party leadership has simply decided to take a first step: a collaboration between the two Senate groups. During his Kees Lunshof lecture in Nieuwspoort on Thursday, Frans Timmermans briefly discussed the criticism from ‘bottom up’ that a joint story must first be worked on. Leadership, said Timmermans, also means that you take a decision once and start the process.
He added that a new movement has to work on a new story. ‘I want to contribute to that myself, but it is not my intention to lead it.’ That is a typical way of speaking in politics: Timmermans says that he does not want to become a leader, but does not rule it out completely either. In any case, he gave an impassioned argument as to why the green and red themes are so closely linked. If you didn’t know better, you saw in him the leader of the new movement.’
Can the party leadership of GroenLinks do anything to convince the letter writers within their party?
‘If you suggest, as the GroenLinks critics do in their letter, that the ideological differences are too great, a merger becomes very difficult. I think the party leadership should take into account that GroenLinks will lose a group of ideologically armored members. Pollsters say that the party can eventually make up for that loss by appealing to left-progressive voters who are in favor of a merger.
‘The same is true for the PvdA. The question of whether that party is prepared to lose practical, MBO-trained voters is a difficult discussion within the PvdA. These people are described as ‘the children of people who first voted PvdA, but now vote VVD and PVV’. If you join forces with GroenLinks and tell a clear left-progressive story, you may be able to increase the number of seats, but you may lose that traditional support base for good.’
Why are the proponents and opponents fighting this battle of ideas in the media?
‘The opinion pages are traditionally the place where this discussion takes place. It was to be expected that submitted documents about left-wing cooperation would be forthcoming. But of course the discussion is also held at the members’ meetings of both parties.’
Were there any names in the two lists of signatories that you looked up to?
‘They weren’t very noticeable to me. At GroenLinks, Sabine Scharwachter, the former chair of GroenLinks youth organization Dwars, was one of the signatories, but it had been known for some time that she was against the merger. At the PvdA it is remarkable that two former party chairmen ask that the process not be rushed through: Hans Spekman and Ruud Vreeman.’
How will it go on?
‘On Saturday 11 June, the results of the GroenLinks members’ referendum on the joint Senate fraction will be announced. The members of the PvdA also vote on that plan that same day. If the members agree, both parties will investigate how the cooperation should be further shaped. That starts with the composition of a joint campaign story and the search for senators who support left-wing cooperation. After that, the question of who will be the leader of the new movement will become increasingly emphatic.
What would be the consequences if cooperation in the Senate did not take place?
‘GroenLinks chairman Eikelenboom has said that the attempts at cooperation will then stop for a while. If the brakes are applied already, further merger plans will be put on the back burner. It is therefore a crucial moment for further left-wing cooperation.’