PvdA leader Lilianne Ploumen announced this week that she had stopped. She didn’t think she was good enough as a leader, she wasn’t adept enough in debates in the House and on TV, and she fell short in opinion-forming and idea development. Everything a politician needs to be a good leader was missing, Ploumen concluded after lengthy introspection. Why she still thought she had the necessary qualities more than a year ago, when she succeeded Lodewijk Asscher, remains unclear. Presumably, in her case too, there appeared to be a difference between who you are and who you hope to be.
Just as she led Job Cohen to the slaughter as chairman in 2011, she now led herself to the scaffold. She hadn’t lived up to her own expectations. After the announcement that she would resign, Ploumen was showered with praise. Not out of joy because she had rid us of herself, but because of the merciless self-analysis that preceded it. We had never seen such honesty before. She had shown great courage, everyone thought, if only more politicians dared to stand in front of the mirror like that.
On the other hand, you can conclude that if everyone in The Hague were as self-critical as Ploumen, the Chamber building would become depopulated. Our institutions can only exist by recognizing our impotence and fallibility. The high standards that Ploumen appeared to place on himself make any functioning impossible, if you are strict enough. The demand for perfection ultimately means the end of every dream.
Most politicians are not bothered by this self-imposed pressure to perform. A majority is much better at self-promotion than at self-criticism. It is bursting with politicians who have messed things up but who continue to see themselves as statesmen of international stature, were it not for the constant obstruction of talentless garden gnomes with runny noses.
Ploumen could have referred to that, instead of blaming himself for everything. For example, she had a sharp conception and detailed ideas for the collaboration with GroenLinks. But unfortunately there are movements in her party that do not want to know anything about Jesse Klaver, let alone about a merger. They patiently wait for the French scenario, in which the Parti Socialist de facto disappeared from the face of the earth last Sunday. Such PvdA members have put their heels in the sand under the motto: as PvdA we were born, as PvdA we will perish. At the most you can blame Ploumen for not being able to change those obstinate types.
The PvdA has buried its seventh leader since 2000 and is looking for the next victim. Again and again there is the hope for a miracle, for a leader who has everything that Ploumen himself lacked, who has the magical power to get a seat or forty; someone with charisma who sends the masses to the polls to vote for the PvdA with a compelling look and a careless wave of the hand.
But does such a person exist? And if he exists, is he a member of the PvdA? Does he, she or them feel like pulling a nearly dead horse with all their might? When do you realize that you are looking for a party leader, but that the party no longer exists?