According to Marianne Zwagerman, CDA MP Pieter Omtzigt committed “professional suicide” when he said in response to the Supplement Affair that he did not want an investigation committee led by Piet Hein Donner. Because in his view such a committee would be anything but independent. Zwagerman: that was the moment when Omtzigt irrevocably got himself into trouble.
Pieter is now sitting [Omtzigt] sick at home. What’s behind that, Rick? ” Media figure Marianne Zwagerman asked this week the co-presenter of her podcast Op Z’n Kop, Rick van Velthuysen. “Is he in the formation in front of the cart? I actually think that, that he said to Hoekstra, “dude, what happens, happens, we are not going to rule with Rutte again.” I think he is trying to stop that and of course he has also said in an interview before that he was thrown so horribly in front of the bus by this government that it broke him. That it is a reason that he is now sick at home. And I think that just don’t want to go with Rutte again. That that might be behind it. Yes, what exactly is going on there in the CDA, that is a very interesting question. ”
Van Velthuysen responded by saying that Omtzigt recently “committed a bit of fratricide, or actually parricide, of one of the CDA celebrities.” That was about Donner. Then they played the audio clip of the debate about the benefits affair. Omtzigt then said that he no longer wanted an investigation by Piet Hein Donner, a former minister for the CDA and still a powerful man in that party. “No, I did not consider someone who previously was vice-chairman of the Council of State together with the former State Secretary for Social Affairs under Minister Asscher to be the most independent committee. Then let me put it very neatly. And what happened in how they cleaned up all, but also all, irregularities, to conclude that there was nothing irregular, that cannot be done, ”said Omtzigt.
As Van Velthuysen explained, you heard Rutte sigh very deeply, clearly in shock. “And then I think the game was on the car,” said the NPO presenter.
Zwagerman agreed. “I think this was the moment, this was the debate about that benefits affair after which the Rutte cabinet fell in January, and I think this is the moment that Omtzigt committed his professional suicide,” she said.
An interesting one take, but of course she is a bit mistaken. This was perhaps the moment when Omtzigt made himself impossible at the top of the CDA. Which can. But this man never committed professional suicide. 342,000 Dutch people voted for him in last week’s elections. If he wants, he can set up a new party, after which he can demolish the CDA in one fell swoop and also immediately take away a whole horde of seats from other parties. He is with the CDA because he (still?) Wants to, not because he is nothing without the CDA. The opposite is almost true: the CDA without Omtzigt would be seriously weakened, and perhaps almost dead.
But yes, it may of course be that this statement by Omtzigt has given him so much resistance, especially from the leadership of his own party, that they want to collude with other parties to dump him. That is possible. Because of course VVD member Rutte wants to get rid of Omtzigt anyway, because if Hoekstra enters a next cabinet, Omtzigt will almost certainly become party chairman of the CDA in the Lower House. This is an absolute nightmare scenario for Rutte. Imagine what Omtzigt can do if he manages the whole faction and can let his whole faction loose on something like the Rutte doctrine. That would be a spectacle!
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For us, then, because for Rutte that is undoubtedly a huge bad dream – one that he wants to prevent at all costs. Either by having Omtzigt promoted with a “position elsewhere”, or by pushing him out of the CDA.
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