The first question that informant Sybrand Buma asked himself on Friday morning was: “What does my app history actually look like?” He is always “quite modest” in what he says, but knows: a formation is “a delicate process”. “This world”, he means the political world in The Hague, “is different from the outside world, I noticed that immediately when I stepped in here. What seems small outside The Hague can be very big here.”
The politically experienced Sybrand Buma, a CDA member who is now mayor of Leeuwarden, knows the “harsh political reality”, he told journalists several times on Friday afternoon. And that reality is that his co-informer, D66 member Hans Wijers, had to withdraw after questions from NRC about Wijers’ private app traffic. In that app traffic he had, among other things, called VVD leader Dilan Yesilgöz “that shrew from the VVD”. Buma and D66 leader Rob Jetten, both well informed about the inner world of The Hague, both immediately seemed to accept that Wijers’ departure was inevitable.
And this immediately makes the situation surrounding the formation completely different. Firstly in a personal sense: Sybrand Buma continues on his own as an informant. This weekend he will only think about how the formation should proceed. On Monday, the negotiators from D66 and CDA will discuss asylum and migration, the first substantive topic to be discussed by this formation.
Derailments
Buma, who previously seemed to see himself as Wijers’ second, now has to think about who he wants to invite and how he will guard the vulnerable formation process against further derailments. In any case, he will not go after his own app history, he said on Friday afternoon. He doesn’t have time for that.
More importantly, Wijers’ resignation has major political consequences. D66 became the largest party in the elections, winning eight more seats than the CDA. There is no law that prescribes that an informant must be from the largest political party, but the fact is that now only a prominent CDA remains. Rob Jetten calls this “unusual”, but says that there is no time to look for someone “because someone from D66 absolutely needs to join”.
Yet an informant is by definition not independent. He or she is almost always appointed because of the party background, otherwise an official or external expert could just as easily have been chosen. And it is precisely that fact that makes this process so vulnerable. An informateur, or a scout, always has a party-political past, and can therefore never be separated from the reality in The Hague.
This also became apparent in the case of Hans Wijers. It turns out that he recently had contact with the group of entrepreneurs from the media, advertising and communications world who call themselves Voice for Stability. That group, led by media entrepreneur Willem Sijthoff, aims for a center-right cabinet of D66, VVD and CDA. The group contains sympathizers and donors from all three parties.
Different dynamics
Wijers’s resignation could, ironically, change the formation dynamics surrounding those three parties. The VVD is not allowed to participate in this phase of the formation. That decision, made under scout Wouter Koolmees, has made VVD members quite nervous. No matter what happens, they can always have a seat at the table. Dilan Yesilgöz immediately seized the first revelation from NRC about Wijers for a new attempt to get involved:
Of course, this is not yet the case, but the VVD sees opportunities.
Formations are periods in which the inner world of The Hague has to figure it out together. The king, at least something of an outsider, has not played a role in the process since 2012. And that leads, as it turns out time and time again, to accidents. In 2021, scout Kajsa Ollongren, a D66 member, accidentally leaked the ‘position Omtzigt: position elsewhere’ note. This led to one of the deepest political crises in recent decades.
Two years ago, scout Gom van Strien, senator on behalf of the PVV, had to withdraw after NRC reported about a report against Van Strien in a fraud case. Former minister on behalf of the PvdA Ronald Plasterk, recruited by Geert Wilders as an informateur, got through that phase. But he later had to withdraw as candidate prime minister after revelations from NRC about a patent issue.
Curtains closed
This is the problem again and again: informateurs and scouts (a role that has only existed since 2012) have to supervise a process and therefore make their own role as small as possible. They must ensure good chemistry at the table, make an inventory of wishes and look for similarities. But that serving, almost invisible role relates poorly to the past that those same people have and always carry with them. The idea is that the curtains should be closed for a while, trust can only be gained if there is no outside influence. But the informant himself is often, unintentionally, the disruptive factor.
The very first informant, the VVD member Dirk Stikker, already understood this dynamic. In 1951 he supervised the formation of the second Drees cabinet (PvdA, KVP, VVD and CHU). When he turned in his final report, he said, according to it New Utrechts Dagbladto journalists: “You have kept me under surveillance with admirable success. Now I would like to regain my freedom. You no longer need to keep an eye on me.”
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