Several parties in the Helmond city council have reacted with horror to the tweets of Forum for Democracy councilor Manfred Smol. Omroep Brabant revealed on Thursday that Smol managed a Twitter account under a false name on which he posted pictures of Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Minister Hugo de Jonge in Nazi uniforms.
In addition to the edited photos of Rutte and De Jonge, there were several insults from Smol towards PvdA party chairman Attje Kuiken and the Belgian virologist Marc van Ranst on the account. His anger focused mainly on the approach to the corona crisis, which he compared to the way the Nazis worked.
Omroep Brabant established that the account belongs to Smol because in 2015 he publicly shared his telephone number with a Sunweb helpdesk employee. That number also belonged to Manfred Smol, according to data from the Chamber of Commerce. If you call the number today, you will still get Smol on the line. The politician himself previously denied to Omroep Brabant to manage the twitter account. The account has now been closed.
‘Do not cooperate’
Lonneke Maraczi, party leader of the SP in Helmond is clear: if the tweets are indeed posted by Smol, that is unacceptable. “In any case, I do not want to be on the same board with these kinds of people and certainly not cooperate at all. We cannot tolerate these disgusting statements and we must never consider this normal.”
Annegien Wijnands of the PvdA Helmond shares this opinion: “The statements you have recorded from the Twitter account are unacceptable. If these do indeed come from Manfred Smol, it is even more disturbing that an elected representative uses such words to fellow politicians.”
‘Requests for rectification’
All parties hold a small blow, because Smol himself continues to vehemently deny having posted the tweets. Deputy Mayor Erik de Vries said on Thursday that he would like to hear ‘his side of the story’ in a personal conversation with Smol.
The CDA in Helmond indicates that it has reservations about the firmness of the FvD. “If I were Mr. Smol and it is not my Twitter account, I would immediately demand an investigation and a correction,” said party chairman Pieter Vervoort. “If it is his twitter account, then we as CDA party Helmond do not want to work with people who have such a mindset.”
Fvd is doing research
Forum for Democracy Helmond has now also responded with a short statement on Twitter. This states that the party is of the opinion that the statements are ‘not acceptable’ and that it distances itself from this. Forum is investigating the role of Smol: ‘We do not participate in trial by media’.