The party at Forum for Democracy (FvD) was great after the parliamentary elections. The party won eight seats, the largest win of all parties. Two years earlier, Forum had already triumphed as the largest party in the elections for the Provincial Council. But little of that euphoria is left, because the elected representatives of the people are turning their backs on the party en masse.
Almost sixty percent of the members of parliament who were elected for FvD in the provinces in 2019 have left. And representatives of the people have also left the party in the House of Representatives, the Senate, the European Parliament and the Amsterdam city council. At the same time, party leader Thierry Baudet takes increasingly extreme positions, both at party meetings and in the House of Representatives.
At the beginning of this year, Arjan de Kok campaigned together with Baudet for the elections to the House of Representatives, he was on the list of candidates in 11th place. De Kok was also party leader in the Provincial Council of Gelderland. But when Baudet sought controversy for the umpteenth time, he had had enough. “I could no longer justify this as a representative of the people.”
According to De Kok, Forum used to be a party “that people were proud of having voted for”. De Kok then joined the new party of MP Wybren van Haga, who had already broken with Baudet.
‘Global coup’
While more and more elected representatives of the people left, Baudet turned his attention to a new subject. The party leader sees a “globalist power grab”. According to him, it is logical that other parliamentarians do not see this. “I think it’s beyond them.” In the House of Representatives, Baudet is also increasingly talking about “a power grab” that is sweeping over us “like a solar eclipse”. “It’s an international project!”
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Baudet is increasingly making this argument at campaign meetings, such as in Uden in Brabant. Forum wants to participate in the municipal redivision elections there soon. “So you have the globalists,” he tells his audience. “Who plan and forge plans from Davos, New York and Geneva, and then we have the municipalities from which we organize the resistance.” The local party leader hears it and later says that he wants to go “for the core” in Uden. “I’ll leave the rest for what it is.”
According to Baudet, his message about a globalist coup is nothing new, but others do not see what he sees. Not he has changed, but “the opponent has launched a different attack”. According to him, Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum, European Commissioner Frans Timmermans, the World Health Organization and big tech and big pharma companies are involved. But who can we contact to request their plans for this? Baudet: “That’s the big question, we don’t know.”
Forumland
The contrast with the beginning of this year is stark. Baudet managed to get a large crowd of voters behind him in the parliamentary elections by fiercely opposing the cabinet’s corona policy. But now it’s about fuss on conspiracy and Baudet is working on a parallel society where people can wrestle themselves from the globalists: Forumland. This is an app in which like-minded people are “happy” and can, for example, date or book holiday homes. “And you can look on a map where FvD members have a cafe, then we go there for a drink.”
De Kok follows it from Gelderland, shaking his head. According to him, the party has recently become a “separated group”. He said that was never the intention. “We wanted to get the whole of the Netherlands on board, not to separate ourselves in a corner.”
Baudet does not take it seriously that dozens of politicians have left the party. “You’ve seen this with Apple and Facebook, too, with countless new companies and organizations.”
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