Pieter Omtzigt will announce his list of candidates in a few weeks. Big absentee on that list: Henriette van Hedel from Boxtel. She always had a short line with the former CDA member who has now started his own party. But she didn’t need to. “I did my duty,” she says. “My personal contribution can be put on the back burner with confidence.”
In December last year, Van Hedel announced that he would participate in the Provincial Council elections with the Alliantie party. That party was founded by sympathizers of Omtzigt. It turned out to be the provisional final piece of rumblings in the CDA, after a major difference of opinion about the course of the party. She didn’t get a seat, but the tone was set.
“We really wanted to see what we could change to make it better.”
In 2019, Van Hedel founded the Social Christian Democracy Foundation with a large number of like-minded people. To be able to talk mainly about the content course. “Even before corona, in 2019, the entire civil society protested. Farmers, nurses and teachers were on the Malieveld. Groups of citizens that are traditionally largely represented by the CDA. We really wanted to see what we could change in terms of content to make it better.”
Omtzigt was closely involved in that foundation. And it was this club that, after the ‘function elsewhere debacle’, managed to force an extra CDA congress to ask for an explanation about the split between the party and the Member of Parliament. According to Van Hedel, no explanation or adjustment of the party course was made during the congress. She, and many with her, resigned from the party.
In 2022, Van Hedel founded De Nieuwe Denktank with five others. Here too, the lines with Omtzigt are short again.
“It’s nice to have been at the cradle of a cover.”
In the polls, NSC van Omtzigt has more than 30 seats. Enough space for Van Hedel you would think. Still, she chooses to put her energy into other things. “It’s nice to have been at the cradle of a change. A new discussion has arisen in the middle. The will to put principles into practice.”
And that cover turns out to be even bigger. The orphaned middle has now split into 3 parties. The ‘old’ CDA, De BoerBurgerBeweging and Omtzigt’s new party, NSC.
“We even inspire people’s representatives to represent the people again.”
Earlier this year, De Nieuwe Denktank organized a symposium with the question ‘Why does government policy (almost) always fail?’, with an essay competition. Former MBO director Anja van Gorsel and politician Mona Keijzer won this competition.
Keijzer herself indicated that her decision to return to politics (number 2 on the BBB list and prime ministerial candidate) was prompted because she was stimulated by the essay competition. Van Hedel laughs: “We even inspire people’s representatives to represent the people again.”
She herself will focus on education within De Nieuwe Denktank in the near future. “Did you know that a quarter of school leavers are practically illiterate? If children don’t learn to read or count well, they can never surpass themselves. How is it possible that we can’t get this right in a prosperous country?”
She also continues to work for Alliance. The party will not participate in the elections in November, because the party’s spearheads double those of Omtzigt. “But in less than four years there will be parliamentary elections again and the party can be of value there.”
“I’m now going to put my energy into projects that have fewer friends.”
Pieter Omtzigt’s party is fine, Van Hedel thinks. “Almost two and a half thousand interested people have registered. In any case, that movement has started. I therefore wish Pieter nothing but good. A good time to invest my energy in projects that have fewer friends.”