Pieter Omtzigt looks back on a bizarre year: ‘I saw Mark Rutte on TV and thought: I’ve been talked about here’

He is by far the most discussed Member of Parliament of 2021: Pieter Omtzigt. At the beginning of this year a member of the CDA, but not anymore. “The party has left me,” he says about it himself, looking back at that photo in question and his burnout.

The Political Moment of 2021, the notes with ‘Omtzigt position, function elsewhere’, set off a chain reaction of events. The whole country was talking about Pieter Omtzigt, while he himself sat at home tense. He looks back on the year.

Never got any clarification

“I was sitting on the couch at home when the photo leaked out and shortly afterwards I left for a funeral, of one of my wife’s uncles,” says Omtzigt. “My phone exploded in the car there, everyone sought contact. I immediately asked the political leaders what had happened here, Ollongren, Koolmees, Rutte.” But 9 months later he still has no answer.

“I never really got any clarification from them about what was behind this. The day before Mark Rutte was at Nieuwsuur about the ‘new board culture’, I received a text message. He didn’t have that need then and that conversation still hasn’t happened. He has not spoken to Kajsa Ollongren either. “I read something in the Linda about text messages to me, I did receive them, but I would rather just have a real conversation.”

With burnout on the couch

How little has been spoken to him, so much has been spoken about him. “Of course we discovered that after those text messages. I had to be sensitized, they were busier with me than with the victims of the allowance affair.” And then a “position elsewhere” was proposed for him.

“I was discussed twice for 15 hours, while I was sitting on the couch with a burnout”, Omtzigt looks back. “It’s not easy to go out when you’re being talked about so much, especially not if you’re not feeling well.”

‘I’ve been talked about here’

The MP followed the debates about the notes in question, at home on the couch. At first Rutte denied that he had talked about Omtzigt. But Omtzigt doesn’t believe that: “I saw him tell it on TV and thought: I’ve been talked about here.” He never said that to Mark Rutte himself either.

It was yet another confirmation that his work was not appreciated by everyone. “My role is to control the government, but that government is clearly not waiting for that. Fortunately, many people out there are waiting for it.”

No transparency

The events sparked a discussion about a ‘new governance culture’. In any case, there should be more transparency. But Pieter Omtzigt has no confidence in that. “Just look at the approaching coalition agreement. The Chamber’s assignment to the scouts was a short coalition agreement, but that did not happen.”

“That agreement will soon be passed through the House within 24 hours. We all have to tick that and then it is cast in concrete. Then they will not deviate from it.” He also does not yet see the transparency that was discussed. “During the formation, the negotiators did not want to come to the House for text and explanation, or to explain problems. That is not transparent, is it?”

‘Teringhond’

2021 was also the year of the split between Omtzigt and his party, the CDA. After he narrowly lost the party leader election to Hugo de Jonge in 2020, which Omtzigt still has his doubts about, he sent a memo in June to the committee investigating those elections. In a 76-page document he described his views on the direction of the party.

In that memo he lashed out hard at fellow party members. He had seen texts calling him a ‘psychopath’, a ‘terrible dog’ and ‘unstable’. Omtzigt’s personal election posters were said to be ‘fucking jerk with those Nazi posters’.

‘The party has left me’

The leaking of that memo was the last straw for the Enschede. “It has become even more difficult for me to function within the CDA,” Omtzigt wrote in a written statement. “That is why I have just canceled my CDA membership with pain in my heart.”

Looking back on that event is still painful for him. “I would have liked to propagate my ideals together with others. But the party has left me, not the other way around.”

Party-Omtzigt?

After his departure, Omtzigt was at home for another 3 months. He has been back to work since September, now as an independent Member of Parliament. There is not yet a party of its own, he says. “For the time being, I will focus on being a Member of Parliament, that is difficult enough. I have not yet recovered sufficiently from my burnout to be involved in a party.”

He did not always experience the attention he received positively, but the work itself also consumes energy. “You have to say yes or no to every law and 4,000 motions are filed a year.” Omtzigt has to do that practically alone. “I have one and a half employees, ministries have 800 spokespersons. That relationship is completely gone.”

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