Pieter Omtzigt: Exploring his Future in Dutch Politics

Almost everyone wants Pieter Omtzigt, but what does Pieter Omtzigt want himself? The MP who split from the CDA in the summer of 2021 and has since been sitting with one seat in the House of Representatives as Groep Omtzigt, is considering his future in politics. In a statement which he posted on Twitter after the fall of the cabinet, Omtzigt calls the end of Rutte IV “a great opportunity for a new start for the Netherlands”.

According to his spokesperson, former CDA MP Nicolien van Vroonhoven, Omtzigt is expected to come up with “news” next week. Other political parties are already hard at work preparing for the parliamentary elections in November. Participation of the popular Member of Parliament, good for 342,472 preference votes in the 2021 elections, can significantly influence the outcome.

This week polled I&O Research for the first time the potential of a political party of Omtzigt after the fall of the cabinet. According to the poll, he would be good for 46 seats with his own party – and thus become by far the largest. So far before the election, polls say according to researchers quite few, especially with new parties, but even if Omtzigt were to achieve half of what is being measured, he could have one of the largest parties in the fragmented landscape.

But Omtzigt’s participation is by no means certain. Three scenarios.

Join another party

JA21 from Joost Eerdmans, BBB from Caroline van der Plas and even the CDA from which he split off: they would all be happy to bring in Omtzigt. That’s not very crazy. Omtzigt is not only potentially good for a lot of seats, the research by I&O Research also shows that he can also get a lot of voters away from those parties. He is therefore a direct electoral competitor.

But spokesman Van Vroonhoven is clear about it: “He said very clearly: either I continue, or I stop. And if he continues, it is for himself, Pieter will not go on anyone else’s list.” And therefore not at the BoerBurgerBeweging of Caroline van der Plas.

If only because of substantive differences: Van Omtzigt is known to be an opponent of intensive livestock farming. Illustrative was the answer he gave when three students approached him in the corridors of the House of Representatives in March. Was he planning to join BBB, they asked. “I did not go into politics to protect the meat industry,” Omtzigt replied.

Yet they still see opportunities at BBB. Caroline van der Plas and Omtzigt have agreed to talk to each other as soon as he has made the decision. This conversation can go three ways. Or we wish him luck with his new party and see how we can work together. Or we wish him luck with his life outside politics. Unless he has to be prepared to go on the list for BBB”, says Henk Vermeer. He is Van der Plas’ right-hand man and one of the founders of the party. “We simply think he is the best Member of Parliament.” They have already thought, says Vermeer, about what they can offer Omtzigt. “What he needs are resources and speaking time. To put it bluntly: he can get it from us. And also more policy officers than average.”

Three days before the fall of the cabinet, Joost Eerdmans of JA21 had dinner with Omtzigt. According to Eerdmans, he has discussed with Omtzigt how they can work together in the House, on themes such as housing and administrative culture. Omtzigt, says Eerdmans, then said that he “sees more in a collaboration between the two of us than in a merger”.

And then there is the CDA. Omtzigt himself has made it clear on several occasions that he has no intention of rejoining the party for which he has been in the Lower House for some eighteen years. In an internally intended memo, the contents of which leaked in 2021, Omtzigt describes how he would have been bullied, antagonized and abused for years. In these weeks the CDA sounds that with the announced departure of Wopke Hoekstra and Pieter Heerma, and possibly also Hugo de Jonge, the way may be clear for Omtzigt’s return. The party is thinking about how they can ask their former party colleague back. But for Omtzigt, a return to the CDA seems out of the question.

A private party

Between the two relatively simple options – joining an existing club or quitting – lies the most difficult way from an organizational point of view: starting your own party. Writing an election program in four months, drawing up a reliable list of candidates and setting up an effective campaign is intensive and costly work. As a loner in the House of Representatives, Omtzigt regularly complains that he has too little budget and too few employees. But he knows he’s not alone.

At various levels sympathizers are ready to help him with his political future plans, with money, with people, with campaign plans. The most important of these is the Support Fund Group Omtzigt. It was founded at the end of 2021 by some (former) CDA politicians to collect financial support for the independent member of parliament.

Last year, the support fund already received more than two hundred thousand in donations, donated by about 3,500 different donors, according to the recently published annual report. Since the fall of the cabinet, the money has been flowing “steadily”, says Matthijs Punter, the foundation’s secretary. “Every time Pieter is in the media, new donations come in.”

The support fund has a lot of contact with Omtzigt, but Punter says he does not know whether he has already decided to set up a new party. “We don’t want to insist on that. He looks a bit more relaxed than in the past, I notice, but we also know that Pieter recently had a burnout. It is wise that he now takes the time to think about it very carefully and to discuss it with his family.”

The support fund does more than just collect money. According to Secretary Punter, more than a hundred volunteers have registered to think along and participate, including as a future Member of Parliament. The foundation maps out which people can be used for which job, and also which people are not. A new party, says Punter, must guard against “fortune seekers”. In addition, the support fund has set up ‘expert groups’ in which people with expertise work out certain themes as the basis for an election programme. The book that Omtzigt wrote, A new social contractaccording to Punter, is “an important starting point, but not everything, is it?”

Then there is Alliantie, a new political party that was founded last fall and participated in the parliamentary elections in three provinces. Omtzigt has no formal ties with it, but he knows the initiators well. And Alliance is totally following his agenda. The party, registered as the ‘Association for the political center’, originates from a think tank of critical (former) CDA members who propagate the ideas of Christian Democracy and want to breathe new life into it. The people involved did not feel at home in the CDA under party leader Hoekstra.

When asked, the political leaders of Alliantie did not want to comment on Omtzigt’s political future. But if he sets up his own party, they will undoubtedly want to help. So they already have some experience with this, and now also all the time. In March, Alliantie managed to select fifty candidates, but none of them won a parliamentary seat.

Fuses

For followers of Hague politics, for his admirers and perhaps also for Pieter Omtzigt himself, it is an unimaginable scenario, but he could of course just stop. Omtzigt has grown into politics. Since he has been in the House of Representatives, with two short breaks for twenty years, he sees his parliamentary work almost as a vocation: to control the government. Whether he belongs to the opposition or to the coalition.

But there are limits to his commitment to politics. In February 2021, shortly before the parliamentary elections, he became overworked and was forced to take a few months of rest. Relations with his party, the CDA, did not improve when it turned out that he had been discussed in the initial phase of the cabinet formation. As a critical parliamentarian, could he not be calmed down with an attractive position outside the Chamber, a ‘function elsewhere’? After the internal memo came to light in June, Omtzigt broke with the CDA. He suffered from burnout for months afterwards.

After that unpleasant experience for him, it is not inconceivable that the 49-year-old Omtzigt now thinks more about his personal well-being and will seek shelter after so many years of Hague politics.

2023-07-23 14:08:37
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