Will Wopke Hoekstra’s CDA leadership still be okay? On Saturday, in Nijkerk, members’ disappointment in the Christian Democratic leader sounded loud and clear, their criticism unprecedentedly harsh. CDA members had gathered in the Hart van Holland conference center for ‘Christian Democracy Day’. Due to the unrest that arose in the party after the presentation of the cabinet’s nitrogen targets last month, a question session was first organized in the morning.
In a small room, with members and CDA directors and politicians, Member of Parliament Derk Boswijk was the first to speak. He first addressed the farmers present. “I’m sorry you’re in such a crappy situation, in so much uncertainty. We could have largely prevented that.”
Boswijk said that he had visited Minister Christianne van der Wal (Nature and Nitrogen, VVD) four days before the presentation of the much-discussed nitrogen map, with reduction targets per region. “I said, I wouldn’t do this. I’m disappointed that I didn’t push myself harder there.”
Incomprehension about Hoekstra
His words were received with much understanding. Boswijk, who did not want to go to The Hague in recent days because his family had been visited by angry farmers at home, also received compliments. That was not the case for Wopke Hoekstra. The CDA leader said he was prepared to “charter to acknowledge what we are not doing well.” He said “all sorts of things had gone wrong.” Hoekstra: “If this is the reception of something that has been studied and worked on for a long time, then we have to conclude, including me, that apparently something has really gone off the rails.”
It was not enough for those present. Jo-Annes de Bat, deputy in Zeeland: “After these fine words, it is also important to point out what went wrong. We have to recognize that things really have to change. I don’t care at all about next year’s elections. What is happening is just really wrong.”
De Bat suggested writing a perspective for farmers himself this summer. „Because Henk Staghouwer [minister van Landbouw, CU] that will not work.”
Eddy van Hijum, deputy in Overijssel, made an appeal to the faction of the House of Representatives and Hoekstra. “Do not saddle provinces with an unrealistic message.” Without perspective for the farmers, he also said, the nitrogen reduction is “an administrative task that I will not accept”. Van Hijum called the gap between the province and The Hague “gigantic”. “There are people who say to me: what are you still doing at that club, please throw your ass against the manger. I see that Derk is doing the right things, but Derk can’t do it alone.”
Also read: ‘The CDA has talked to the farmers for too long’
‘You should be ashamed’
Wopke Hoekstra, who was sitting between party chairman Pieter Heerma and Derk Boswijk, nodded, nodded and nodded along. He heard members say that the goals had to be dropped, that “the party will be destroyed from below” if nothing happened, about farmers’ doubts whether they should still vote for the CDA. He only stopped nodding when a CDA member said: “That CDA members have allowed this to come out in this way, you are deeply culpable, you should be deeply ashamed of that.”
And he also continued to look motionless when he heard from Jan Arie Koorevaar, party chairman of the CDA in Molenlanden in South Holland and dairy farmer: „Where were you, Wopke? Where were you as party leader?” Hoekstra also received a red farmer’s handkerchief from Koorevaar – the symbol of demonstrating farmers. “For your car, or on your plane, because I think you are more often with that.” The handkerchief disappeared in Hoekstra’s pocket and did not come out for the rest of the day. Where Boswijk had always received applause, Hoekstra often failed to do so.
Doubts for a long time
The criticism sounded out loud for the first time on Saturday, but since the beginning of his party leadership, there has been doubt about Hoekstra. Immediately after taking office, he wanted to make changes to the election program that many CDA members found much more appropriate for a liberal. The question of whether he is really a Christian Democrat has never disappeared since. And also: does he want to be leader of the CDA?
The same questions were heard again in the corridors this Saturday. On the main stage, after the nitrogen session, Hoekstra read a story behind a lectern about the CDA as a community party, about the importance of ‘together’. The Belgian Sammy Mahdi, chairman of the Flemish equivalent of the CDA, the CD&V, was also there. Last month he resigned as State Secretary for Asylum and Migration to lead the Flemish Christian Democratic party. Mahdi stood in the middle of the stage, told – with humor – by heart and visibly got the audience on board. He spoke about the importance of stewardship, about the politics of ideals. The contrast could not have been greater.
Also read: The farmers are losing their faith in the CDA