Tuesday, March 8, 2022 is a sunny spring day that Sigrid Kaag once again really looked forward to. The D66 leader is allowed to hold the annual Europe speech in the Sint-Janskerk on the Vrijthof in Maastricht. Away from The Hague, where she has regularly come under fire since the difficult cabinet formation of 2021.
In Maastricht, Kaag gives a well-thought-out and passionate story in English to an audience of a few hundred international students. She radiates calm and conviction during her speech for more than 45 minutes. She did her very best. Two weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she finds the message about European cooperation, about the European Union as an ‘unprecedented peace machine’, extremely important. Afterwards she answers questions from the audience, just as relaxed, with the occasional joke.
Then things go wrong.
During her speech, news broke from The Hague that the House of Representatives had summoned the Minister of Finance to the weekly question hour to discuss the purchasing power consequences of the war in Ukraine. But Kaag is in Maastricht. Opposition parties are furious. “An unprecedented disgrace,” shouts PVV leader Geert Wilders. “The minister is just speeching about Europe, while people cannot pay their gas bills.”
After her lecture, the media is no longer talking about her European story, but about Kaag’s absence in the Chamber. To the group of parliamentary reporters present, she reacts grumpy and irritated. “What are you doing here?”
It is something that Sigrid Kaag has never been able to get used to in her short political career: the hectic pace of The Hague around the riot of the day. Often with herself as the target.
Also read this profile of Kaag from 2022: Sigrid Kaag is especially at ease outside The Hague
Appreciation and threats
On Thursday morning, Kaag (61) announced an unavoidable decision for her intimates: she is no longer available as party leader. This makes D66 the third government party to lose its political leader since the fall of the Rutte IV cabinet. Outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) and CDA leader Wopke Hoekstra announced their departure on Monday.
In an interview in Fidelity and in one open letter to party members, Sigrid Kaag explains that her decision to quit was prompted by concerns about her safety, especially with her family. “For me, in addition to love and appreciation, the past period was also accompanied by hate, intimidation and threats,” she writes. “It was sometimes difficult for me, but bearable. It’s different for my family.”
D66 struggled with integrity affairs that weakened Kaag’s plea for moral leadership, transparency and support for women
Since she became political leader of D66, Kaag has been constantly taunted, intimidated and threatened by political opponents. A man with a burning torch visited her at home early last year. At a campaign rally for the provincial elections, she was also welcomed by demonstrators with burning torches. Kaag has been heavily guarded for a long time.
Her two daughters narrated in a TV program at the end of May College Tour afraid that their mother will really be harmed. “I worry that my mother will end up like Els Borst,” said daughter Janna. She called on her mother to take another job. Emotionally, Kaag said after seeing that fragment: “I always listen to my daughters.”
Also read this article: Sigrid Kaag not a D66 party leader in the upcoming elections because of concerns about her family
Never really home
The security issue is serious and serious, but not the only consideration for Kaag to leave politics in The Hague after six years. It was an open secret that she never really felt at home there and never really enjoyed it. In October 2017, the then 55-year-old Kaag was asked by D66 to become Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation in Rutte III. She had a successful international career, as a diplomat for the Foreign Office and as a negotiator for the United Nations. Kaag, who grew up in Zeist, had lived abroad for most of her life, including in Beirut, Vienna and Jerusalem.
In his first period as minister, Kaag led a relatively quiet and invisible existence. No big political issues that touched her portfolio, a lot of travel, little in front of the camera. But after the departure of political leader Alexander Pechtold in October 2018, the call within D66 became louder: shouldn’t Sigrid Kaag become the new party leader? Although she didn’t seem to be jumping for it, two years later she was indeed chosen as the party leader for the 2021 parliamentary elections. Former party chairman Rob Jetten stepped aside; he is now named as Kaag’s successor as party leader.
The party focused the campaign on Sigrid Kaag: she could become the country’s first female prime minister. Kaag promised ‘new leadership’. Where she started somewhat hesitantly at first, Kaag increasingly found her own tone in the campaign. In television debates she made an impression against her great political rival Geert Wilders.
April 1st
Under Kaag’s leadership, D66 won a major election victory: 24 seats. It left other progressive parties far behind. During the formation year that followed, Kaag made a few cardinal decisions that would haunt her for a long time to come.
During the ‘April 1 debate’ about the leaked scouting note about MP Pieter Omtzigt (‘position elsewhere’), Kaag was in a position to overthrow Mark Rutte. If her D66 party had supported the vote of no confidence against the VVD leader, his reign would have come to an end by then – and the way would have been open for the new administrative culture everyone wanted.
Kaag didn’t. D66 only voted for the censure motion. After that debate, Kaag said that if this happened to her, she would resign of her own accord. Rutte stayed on and Kaag entered a difficult formation process with him.
From the moment that Kaag became political leader of D66, she was constantly taunted by political opponents
At the end of May there was a small reshuffle in the caretaker Rutte III cabinet and Kaag took the place of VVD member Stef Blok at Foreign Affairs. Less than four months later, she was forced to resign after an emotional debate in the House of Representatives about the chaotic evacuation of embassy personnel from Afghanistan. The House had now also passed a motion of censure against her.
Less than two weeks later, at the end of September, Kaag spun off the deadlocked formation process with a decision that disappointed many of her voters. She let go of her often-expressed wish for “a coalition as progressive as possible” and allowed the ChristenUnie to participate in the final negotiations. In doing so, she gave VVD and CDA insight into their desired continuation of the centre-right cabinet. Although D66 managed to win a lot in the coalition agreement – on climate, nitrogen and education – and Kaag became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the popularity of Kaag and D66 declined. And the atmosphere within the cabinet never became very warm or collegial. Rutte IV became a marriage of convenience that was never able to fulfill the great ambitions it had.
‘Clique of Pechtold’
In addition to the often visible dissatisfaction with the political business, something else played with Kaag that made her deeply unhappy: she never really felt at home with D66. As a relative latecomer, as party leader she had little choice but to make use of the existing army of advisers and collaborators. As a result, she continued to rely for a long time on what had come to be called the ‘clique of Pechtold’ in the Binnenhof. Crafty strategic thinkers, skilled in political tricks.
The role of these spin doctors broke Kaag up painfully twice. Her well-prepared HJ Schoo lecture, in September 2021, was tightened up at the last minute by advisers with sneering at VVD leader Rutte. Kaag later regretted this.
Later that month, D66 press officers and a member of parliament spread the gossip that informateur Johan Remkes had drunk too much during one of the many long and late meetings at the negotiating table. Kaag, who had been present, distanced himself from the gossip and said he had taken internal measures.
Equally painful for Kaag was that D66 made the news in recent years with a number of integrity affairs: complaints of transgressive behavior by MPs and party prominents. Kaag considered these kinds of issues mainly a party matter, but saw that the party board did not act adequately. For the sake of the image, the tendency was always to keep it small. As a political leader, Kaag was always blamed for it. It narrowly weakened her advocacy for moral leadership, transparency, a safe work environment and support for women.
The election slogan ‘New leadership’ has long since been used by D66. And the woman who personified this promise is now turning her back on national politics.
Also read this review of a biography by Sigrid Kaag: Why does Kaag raise so much resistance?