She immediately admits, it sounds old-fashioned, the motto that the CDA has polished for these elections: ‘peace, cleanliness, regularity’. But Inge van Dijk from Gemert, number 4 on the CDA list, fully supports it. “It really doesn’t mean that we all have to go to bed on time again, although that would be good for me.”
Inge van Dijk explains in episode 7 of ‘Brabant Chooses, the podcast’ that the slogan mainly applies to the business community that demands a government that is predictable and keeps promises. It is this image of reliability and solidity that will give the CDA a significant election win if the polls turn out to be true.
In 2023, the former power party was reduced to a splinter party with 5 seats. Inge van Dijk: “That was really a moment when we sat together for the first time with five people. But we immediately agreed that we would act consistently and constructively and that we would communicate our story better. That now appears to work.” In the polls the CDA has around 25 seats.
Van Dijk thinks that there is a widespread need for ‘decency’ in society again. “That’s what I hear most from people: can you please act normal again in The Hague?” She also hears this from local administrators, who see how coarsening is increasing in municipal councils under the influence of The Hague mores. “While if you want to solve things together, you also have to hold each other and work together.”
Local politics are close to her heart. Not surprising, Inge van Dijk sat for the CDA in the Gemert-Bakel municipal council for 17 years. And she was an alderman in the same municipality, from 2018 until she went to the House of Representatives in 2021.
“People keep to themselves and society struggles with that.”
It was not even obvious that she ended up at the CDA. “I come from a very red background,” she says. But as a board member of the handball club, the legendary Gemertse CDA councilor Harrie Verkampen had his eye on her. “And I actually quickly felt at home with the CDA, because it is a party that believes in the power of society.”
But that society does need major maintenance, she thinks. “People keep to themselves and society struggles with that. The accumulation of problems that young people face, for example, is a symptom of this. The pressure to perform is enormous, the influence of social media, buying on credit, gambling addiction. These are problems that you really cannot solve just by scaling up psychological care. Somehow we have to de-stress our society.”
And she wants to focus intensively on this in her new period as a Member of Parliament, including by creating a podcast with experts, she says. But isn’t there a good chance that the CDA will govern? And then there might be a ministerial post for her. Minister of Finance? After all, she also worked at Rabobank for 22 years. Her response is predictable: “I don’t want to anticipate that, I am now a candidate for a seat in the House of Representatives.”
Episode 7 of ‘Brabant Kiest, the podcast’ with Inge van Dijk of the CDA can be listened to here:
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