In the VVD, the displeasure is growing over the ‘PVV-Light’ course of party leader Yesilgöz

VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz can come across ‘fierce and intense’. That is not a reproach from her political opponents. She says it herself, in a video of July 2. “I am in full conviction for your liberties standing up, sometimes unpolished, but that is the fight.”

In that video, Yesilgöz explained why she had called singer Douwe Bob a “Jewish hater” on X – after which he received threats and left the country with his family. She doesn’t find her attitude herself a problem, it is “really,” she says.

The right wing of the VVD is still happy with Yesilgöz. Chairman Reinier Geerligs of the Conservative VVD network classic Liberal, calls her description of Douwe Bob a “good reaction”. Geerligs “would rather have a political leader who talks with the heart on his tongue and says what it says, than one who wants to smooth everything out.”

But the doubts about her leadership grows among more moderate VVD people. More and more often criticism sounds, in the corridors and also openly: Dilan Yesilgöz does not behave premierworthy, she alienates herself from voters. Such criticism is very unusual in the VVD. Among Mark Rutte, it has become custom that VVD members do not lose each other in public.

Always to the right

Last month, Yesilgöz, without counter candidates, was elected party leader in the elections of 29 October. But this week Maurice de Hond surveyed that only 18 percent of voters are enthusiastic about Yesilgöz as prime minister. She is behind Geert Wilders (PVV), Mona Keijzer (BBB), Frans Timmermans (GroenLinks-PvdA), mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema and SER chairman Kim Putters. Favorite prime minister: CDA leader Henri Bontenbal (38 percent).

The care in the VVD is that Yesilgöz mainly tries to get rid of voters from Wilders, with little success, and therefore threatens to lose voters in the middle.

Former party leader Ed Nijpels has been publicly speaking his dissatisfaction with Yesilgöz for some time. In return for NRC He says that under her leadership his party also “ideologically”. “We are liberals, that means that we are sometimes left and sometimes the right,” says Nijpels. Yesilgöz always goes to the right, “and not just a bit too”.

You can hear similar criticism in the network The new VVD peoplea liberal group with several hundred members. When the VVD dropped the Rutte IV cabinet in 2023 on the restriction of the number of ‘NareiZIGers’, family reunification of refugees, they were stripped because the VVD campaigned with the theme of asylum and migration. Even Bozer made them that Yesilgöz started to rule with PVV last year, and fully cooperated in constitutional policies, such as the new asylum laws.

Also De Telegraafan important medium for the VVD, is becoming increasingly critical. Political reporter Wouter de Winther wrote on Monday in his column that the VVD focuses on its attention “by ordinary and unthinked twitter and other screams.” That behavior has been copied from Geert Wilders, he says.

Former party chairman Klaas Dijkhoff, highly respected in the VVD, criticized at WNL talk show Good evening Netherlands Yesilgöz ‘Toon over Douwe Bob. The choice for that tone determines whether “the fuss is on,” he said. And Dijkhoff had often thought about Yesilgöz “performance:” Don’t do that. “

Dijkhoff recently focused the action group with a number of other (former) VVD people For our Netherlands Op, against populism and before cooperation in the political center. Some VVD people also see that message as a criticism of the political course of Yesilgöz.

Former chamber chairman Frans Weisglas is afraid that Yesilgöz is also lured out of the tent “through the next Douwe Bob”. He thinks it is important that the VVD is talking about the content, such as Defense and Economy, to play instead of ‘PVV-Light’. Weisglas: “This should not continue in this way until October 29. This makes it an unpleasant campaign that voters are not waiting for.”

Street fighter

Yesilgöz has made a political career by profile himself on the theme of safety. She comes from a secular Turkish-Kurdish family, who asked asylum in the Netherlands in the 1980s because her father was in danger in Turkey as a human rights activist. After wanderings along left -wing parties – afterwards she found that patronizing about her background – she came to the Amsterdam city council in 2014 on behalf of the VVD. From 2017 she was a member of the House of Representatives, five years later she became Minister of Justice and Security and in 2023 she succeeded Mark Rutte as a political leader.

That was a style break for the VVD. Where Rutte, especially in his years as a prime minister, wanted to be the friendly connector and sometimes the strict statesman, Yesilgöz often acts as a street fighter to fellow politicians and journalists.

Then the television program Bar late In May, a satirical item made in which VVD State Secretary Vincent Karremans supposed to handle cocaine for young people, Yesilgöz called that “hard drug-promotion” that may “endanger” young people.

A year earlier, BNNVARA program maker Tim Hofman got a wipe when he called on images of police violence during Gaza protests with him. Yesilgöz, at the time Minister of Justice and Security, Hofman said there on X directly on. Whether he did not want images of “Rioters who make journalists the work impossible, attack the Jewish community, throw stones and ammonia to agents and demolished things and buildings, Tim?”

Unnecessary, and not very ministerial, was the criticism of some VVD people.

You can say a lot about Timmermans, but that is not an untrained man who is not good

Her ministry closed Yesilgöz with a painful debate about herself. During the 2023 campaign, she said that “thousands” people entered the Netherlands through “stacked family reunification.” It turned out to be dozens.

Yesilgöz afterwards acknowledged the error and said that it had not been “deliberate lies.” But according to other parties in the Chamber, it looked like deception based on the campaign.

Strategic blunder

The incidents form a pattern, see party members. Yesilgöz likes to get out, or makes hard statements, and too often it turn out to be exaggerated or unpack them as a strategic blunder. Sometimes she makes a knew, but never deep. Apologies never makes Yesilgöz; At most she regrets the fuss about her statements.

According to sources in the party, Yesilgöz is talked about by party members: she has to adjust her attitude. But she continues to act regularly.

Yesilgöz can also be very pronounced at accurately directed moments. Like during the VVD’s party congress last month, when she continued to repeat that the PvdA was extradited to the “extreme, left-radical, activist part of the supporters of GroenLinks”.

Yet, there was a hard job and nicely bubbled afterwards. But prominent VVD people said Off The Record Against journalists that Yesilgöz GroenLinks-Pvda is floating in a corner by getting so hard to the party. How can the VVD still form with that party, if it polarizes so much?

According to former party leader Nijpels, it is ‘extremely removal’ against GroenLinks-PvdA a wrong choice. He sees no reason why the VVD could not work with that party. “You can say a lot about Timmermans, but that is not an untraceable man who is not good.” According to Nijpels, it is important that ‘a normal atmosphere’ is created in The Hague.

Former Chamber President Weisglas endorses that Yesilgöz is currently mainly damaging the relationships, he believes that the VVD should “invest in relationships with other parties”. Especially with GroenLinks-Pvda, “because they are going to get many seats,” he thinks. He has also decided to be ‘mild’ about Yesilgöz, now that she has excluded cooperation with the PVV, unlike in the previous campaign. “Let’s count our blessings,” says Weisglas.

Chairman Geerligs of the Conservative VVD network Classical Liberal is very different. He is satisfied that the VVD has ‘dared’ to collaborate with PVV, BBB and NSC. “I think the PVV is not wise at this stage,” he says. Geerligs is happy with the ‘playing towards Timmermans’, and believes that Yesilgöz should go one step further and to exclude GroenLinks-PvdA.

That’s how Yesilgöz further distributes the VVD. The result of the elections in October can determine her further political career. The party is now more or less stable in polls. If the VVD wins more seats in October (there are now 24), she might strengthen her position. But if the party loses seats, the call for a successor from the liberal wing will become louder. A permanent quota VVD people hopes for years that Klaas Dijkhoff will leave the wings. In addition, the names of outgoing Minister of Defense Ruben Brekelmans and outgoing Minister of Economic Affairs Vincent Karremans are now completing.

Correction (12/7): An earlier version of this article wrongly stated that Yesilgöz became Minister of Justice in 2019. This was only in 2022, five years after her debut as a Member of Parliament.

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