This summer, a reorientation is beginning to emerge in the political center in the choice of new party leaders. Although a few left the party at CDA and PvdA out of dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in their parties, all in all, this was not a summer of major internal struggles within parties. Without great resistance, the party leaders of the middle parties selected list leaders, sometimes sending a radically different message to their electorate.
If Mark Rutte could excel in a fragmented political landscape as a political fixer and everyone’s friend without an overly pronounced ideological profile, now the VVD has elected a party leader who previously fulfilled the classic VVD fighting role of right winger, as MP and minister, Dilan Yesilgöz.
With a new chance at power in sight, PvdA and GroenLinks joined forces behind a social democrat who has built up a distinctly green profile in recent years, veteran Frans Timmermans.
At D66, climate minister Rob Jetten quietly took the place of party leader again. He already fulfilled this role in the House of Representatives after the departure of Alexander Pechtold, but in 2021 he made way for Prime Ministerial candidate Sigrid Kaag, who profiled himself more on the administrative culture.
Where Yesilgöz and PVV leader Wilders compete on the right on cultural themes, Timmermans and Jetten will soon be able to wage an election battle of the climate popes: one as former European Commissioner for Climate Change, the other as Climate Minister.
Wilders (soon to be 60) and Timmermans (62) are the oldest list leaders on the ballot paper. Furthermore, a new leading generation is arriving in The Hague, with, in addition to Yesilgöz (46) and Jetten (36), a little further on the flanks Mirjam Bikker (ChristenUnie, soon 41), Esther Ouwehand (Partij voor de Dieren, 47) and Lilian Marijnissen (SP, 38). Caroline van der Plas (BoerBurgerBeweging) is in between with 56 years.
The upcoming party leader of the CDA will soon be part of the younger generation of party leaders. Henri Bontenbal (almost 41) was nominated by the party board this week. An opponent is not expected.
His profile is surprising for the CDA in several respects. Like many of his contemporaries, climate change plays a major role in his political thinking for the energy specialist Bontenbal. Since 2021 he has been climate spokesperson for the CDA in the House of Representatives. It will be interesting to see how he brings that forward in the campaign.
Bontenbal has a lot to do to win back the classic CDA supporters. Although he likes to use terms such as values, norms and decency, he is also a Rotterdammer who is as yet hardly recognizable in the rural regions in the east, where the CDA suffered the most sensitive losses in recent years.
Last year’s provincial elections showed that the CDA has more to fear than any other party from the rise of the BBB. In the coming months there may be competition from the popular ex-CDA member Pieter Omtzigt, who may be taking part in the elections with his own party.
Administrative experience is not the classic CDA trump card this time either. It is precisely in the post-Rutte era that you would expect the CDA to do everything in its power to put forward an experienced administrator who can produce a Christian Democratic prime minister again after twelve years.
Well-known potential pioneers with experience as a minister are still widely available in the CDA. But they all shuffled smoothly to the sidelines in recent months, including the ministers with experience as deputy prime minister, Hugo de Jonge and outgoing party leader Wopke Hoekstra. And no one in the CDA publicly climbed the barricades for them.
With Bontenbal, the CDA now comes up with a relatively light candidate. Competitors such as Yesilgöz, Jetten and Timmermans have more experience as directors and have earned more spurs in the Chamber than Bontenbal. Bee News hour This week, Bontenbal even rejected the classic description of the CDA as an ‘administrative party’. He sees the CDA as a ‘responsibility party’.
That sounds like anticipating a CDA that sees itself as a kind of Christian Union, a party that regularly co-governs as a junior partner. After shrinking to fifteen seats in the 2021 parliamentary elections, the CDA was already on its way to that role, as the third coalition partner after VVD and D66 – but still three times larger than the ChristenUnie.
It must therefore be a spectacular comeback under the leadership of Bontenbal, otherwise the elections in November threaten to end the CDA as a supporting center party.
A version of this article also appeared in the August 19, 2023 newspaper.