The controversial Member of Parliament Sam Pormes has canceled his membership in GroenLinks and remains in the Drenthe Parliament in a personal capacity. This has been announced by the Drenthe department of GroenLinks.
Pormes, who was leader of GroenLinks, was discredited last month when it turned out that he had been sentenced in 2017 to repay money wrongly received from a personal budget. He had been silent about this when he applied for the Provincial Council. “In the candidate procedures, there is an explicit request for involvement in lawsuits,” says the party.
The board and the party of GroenLinks then lost confidence in him and wanted him to give up his seat. However, because a Member of Parliament is elected in a personal capacity, Pormes is free to form a one-man faction.
Pormes spent much of the summer recess abroad and could not be reached for comment.
When he was a senator in the Senate at the beginning of this century, the GroenLinkser was also accused of not being honest about his past. He is said to have been involved in the Moluccan train hijackings in the 1970s and to have followed guerrilla training in Yemen. GroenLinks had this investigated in 2005, but found no evidence for those allegations. That is why Pormes was able to remain active for the party.
GroenLinks now has one seat left in the Drenthe parliament, which has 43 seats.