Very good!” Passers-by in a shopping street in Barendrecht come to congratulate the selected candidates from Echt Voor Barendrecht in their campaign store. After the elections, the local political party has a fabulous majority of twenty out of twenty-nine seats. “I expected that we would win, but that much is bizarre,” says entrepreneur and party member Dennis Boom. “You may wonder what is so good about this party. But you may also wonder what is wrong with the other parties. That’s a lot.”
The party unites two hundred and fifty enthusiastic members, who say they are of diverse ideological-political background, who have campaigned not only in recent months, but actually throughout the entire council term. That is to say: they went into the neighbourhoods, rang the doorbells of residents, picked up litter and gauged the mood among residents. “And we will continue to do that,” says party leader Lennart van der Linden, financial advisor to the municipality of Westvoorne in daily life and also a senator for the Nanninga faction. “We will be doing a thank you tour soon. The campaign for the elections in four years has started today.” They already had a party on Wednesday evening and then they went to the town hall, where the mood was depressed by the loss of the other parties. “A funeral is more fun.”
Three causes
There are three reasons why Echt Voor Barendrecht has left its political competitors so far behind, analyzes party leader Van der Linden. First, the policy of the coalition. “That was mediocre, and I’m putting it mildly.” For example, a new, ‘illogical’ waste policy has aroused ‘much resistance’. “If you want people to turn against you, you should introduce something like this without consultation. The Barendrechters have been given two waste containers at home to separate waste and are expected to deposit the rest of their waste in a nearby container with a pass. The more you deposit, the more you pay. Van der Linden: „People are blind to waste separation. We see that differently. We strive for a balance between waste separation, ease of use, the appearance of the outdoor space and affordability.”
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The second explanation for the monster victory is that the party has been “rewarded” for a “good quality” campaign, “an appealing” program and a “varied list” of “skilled” candidates from all over Barendrecht. The party is open to the public. Miranda Mes, second on the list: “People received an answer much faster through us than through the municipality.”
The third cause is the ‘sentiment’ among voters, who wanted to take revenge for the injustice that many felt had been done to the party. Van der Linden: „The voter will not be fooled. We were rewarded four years ago with a five-seat win for the policies we had pursued, then we became the largest party by far, but were shut out on election night by all the other parties combined.”
voted out
Many of the party’s proposals have been voted down in the past four years by the coalition of six other parties, which together had one more seat. Van der Linden: „Barendrecht always had four aldermen. That became six. We have proposed with every budget to reduce that to four, and not to increase taxes with the three tons that we save. That was of course not accepted, because then they would have had to send an alderman from one party away.” The party has kept a “waste meter”. “Six million euros has been thrown away.”
Six million wasted
The party members themselves, four years after they were excluded, sound rather mild about the other parties. Relations were particularly disturbed at first. But they still greet each other, and the party wants nothing to do with revenge. Miranda Mes: „We could ignore everyone. But we’re not going to do that. We’re not going to do what the other parties did last time. We are looking for the connection.”