So he had run away for a while. Very illustrative, the studio guests thought WNL on Sunday – Pieter Omtzigt who runs away when things get difficult. Pieter Omtzigt who cannot deal with difficult questions. Pieter Omtzigt who… well… “You know,” said presenter Rick Nieman: “The complicated thing about this issue is that all journalists and politicians and people who have ever dealt with Omtzigt know that he – and that has also been discussed a lot in the newspaper and in various TV moments – remarkable behavior, occasionally.” There was not much time for further analysis, but Nieman seemed confident that other media would take over. “I suspect that this interview will still be talked about a bit, also by other people.”
He was right. Omtzigt’s “remarkable behavior” made the news on Sunday morning. Even the NOS headlined: ‘Emotional Omtzigt walks away from interview’. At the request of the NSC leader, the interview in question was pre-recorded on the De Wilmersberg estate in Twente, because coming to the WNL studio after his burnout would be just too taxing. But even the Twente landscape did not provide sufficient relief. When Nieman asked about the rumors that circulated during the formation and budget negotiations about Omtzigt’s alleged tantrums, the politician’s microphone only registered a loud swallow. He remained silent for a few seconds. “You don’t have an answer to that?” Nieman asked. “Can we stop for a moment,” said Omtzigt. “One beat. Wait a minute.”
The stuttering, the awkward silences, the moment he finally stood up and temporarily disappeared from view – WNL decided to broadcast it all. Omtzigt was not happy with that decision, Nieman told his studio guests, including Good morning Netherlandspresenters Frank van Leeuwen and Lisette Wellens. They were quite surprised by Omtzigt’s behavior. Yes; so illustrative…
The negotiation period
Also illustrative: how all the attention that Sunday was focused on the walking away fragment, and not on a statement that Omtzigt made later in the interview, after he had collected himself behind the scenes and had then neatly taken a seat in the chair opposite his interviewer. He wanted to know how he looked back on the negotiating period. “A quite tough period,” said Omtzigt. “We were dealing with a party that had submitted bills that, for example, made it a punishable offense to possess a Koran and punished with a five-year prison sentence.”
A news headline could have resulted from that too. Something like: ‘Governing party tried to tamper with Article 6 of the Constitution: freedom of religion and belief during formation.’ But that’s apparently no longer news. The fact that three other parties – including Omtzigt’s – continued to push forward despite that proposal is apparently now also quite normal. Omtzigt’s burnout complaints – no, those are remarkable. Eye on the ball!
I still haven’t managed to find all this very normal. It would have seemed more logical to me if those three parties had uttered the same cry as opera singer Francis van Broekhuizen in Scrooge live – a kind of winter version The Passionbut considerably more fun. In the broadcaster’s MAX performance of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol Van Broekhuizen took on the role of Scrooge’s deceased business partner. She concluded the visit that her ghost paid to Scrooge with a loud and high-pitched: “Ammehóé-óé-óé-la!” Then she disappeared. Omtzigt could have simply done something like that after the Koran ban proposal – together with the other negotiating party leaders. That wouldn’t have been a bad time to walk away. But they stayed put. Very illustrative.