ANP
NOS News•
Pieter Omtzigt is not participating in the upcoming Provincial Council elections, he said via Twitter. The former CDA member is currently a one-man faction in the House of Representatives.
Omtzigt says that he has recently been asked whether he will be available in the elections of March 15. “I did not register for the parliamentary elections,” he writes. “I’m not going to do that for this election. At the moment, as a Member of Parliament, I’m working on concrete plans for better governance and social security in the Netherlands. That’s what I’m focusing on.”
In the parliamentary elections of March 2021, Omtzigt received more than 342,000 preference votes as number 2 of the CDA, by far the highest number of all non-list leaders.
Break with CDA
Omtzigt left the CDA in June 2021, out of dissatisfaction with the way the party had treated him. A memo from him that was addressed to a committee that was supposed to investigate the internal party leader elections in the summer of 2020 leaked. Out the note it emerged that Omtzigt felt unsafe within the CDA and that he had been verbally abused by fellow party members. At the time of the break, Omtzigt had been tense at home for months.
Parties wishing to participate in the Provincial Council elections must submit their lists of candidates by 30 January at the latest. The members of the Provincial Council elect the members of the Senate. That will happen on May 30.
