The political party Volt had the Gundogan issue evaluated. After a year there is now a report of 194 pages. The piece does not answer the question of what exactly ex-Volt Member of Parliament Nilüfer Gündogan did wrong.
That is not surprising: Gündogan did not want to cooperate and ‘several interviewees’ indicated that they did not want to read details about ‘the undesirable and/or transgressive behavior they described’ in the report.
They cited fear of reporting by Gundogan as the reason for this. She previously filed a libel report against those who reported alleged transgressive behaviour. Those declarations were, incidentally, dismissed by the Public Prosecution Service (OM).
Volt and Gundogan fell out in February 2021. After a report of cross-border behavior, the party and the group suspended Gündogan as a group member. An investigative agency was instructed to investigate the complaint, but Gundogan refused to cooperate with that investigation. Instead, she filed a lawsuit demanding her return.
She was right in the first instance by the judge. In March, Volt finally kicked her out of the faction after it turned out that thirteen reports had been received. Gündogan continued as an independent Member of Parliament. In February of this year, Volt won the appeal: Gundogan should have been expelled from the faction. Proceedings on the merits initiated by Gündogan are still pending.
Foundations
The issue shook the young party to its very foundations, writes the evaluation committee. In April 2022, it was instructed to evaluate the matter. The findings were to be discussed ‘before the summer’, but the report is only now complete.
The 194 pages that have become public – two chapters are ‘shortened’ for privacy reasons, the board writes – do not contain any concrete examples of Gündogan’s behaviour. However, it is precisely specified how much time the committee spent on the report: 2810 hours, including 1360 hours for all interviews and 850 hours for writing the report. The members of the working group, six in total in varying composition, are also introduced in biographies.
Who is not mentioned by name is Nilüfer Gündogan himself. Volt writes once ‘a much-discussed faction member of Volt in the House of Representatives’ and then consistently about the ‘Ex-fraction member’ (including capital letter) when they mean Gündogan. It is not explained anywhere why it is so marked.
It turns out that there will be ‘positive sounds’ about Gündogan when she becomes active for the party in 2019. She has already gained political experience at D66, which comes in handy for the starting party. People praise her “confidence and her charm.” It is also noted that Gündogan is ‘very direct’ and ‘didn’t fall on her mouth’. Even then, that ‘fierceness’ is seen as a good counterpart to ‘the somewhat calmer temperament’ of other Volters. She is, says the committee, ‘regarded as a real asset’.
Coach
Even before the Volt debut in the 2021 parliamentary elections, there are still struggles. For example, Gündogan was of the opinion that she should be the party leader instead of Laurens Dassen. Even before the elections, a coach must be involved to improve ‘the connection’ between Gündogan and party leader Dassen.
The committee also states that Güngodan would not have adhered to the previously discussed ‘line of communication’ in an interview, that there are ‘raised eyebrows’ about ‘undesirable statements’ on Twitter and that she ‘cannot handle feedback that she perceives as criticism’. Then she can be ‘unpredictable in her behavior and come across as manipulative’. According to the committee, the working relationship with party employees was disrupted at that time. According to the evaluation committee, Gündogan dismisses it as ‘gossip’.
Independence
Apart from ‘a long e-mail’, Gündogan refused to participate in the evaluation because the chairman of the evaluation committee, Monique van der Poel, is also on the Volt candidate list for the Senate. According to her lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops, this makes Gündogan ‘seriously doubt’ her independence.
Van der Poel is not the only working group member who is eligible for a position within Volt. Denise Filippo appears to be the only candidate for the co-chairmanship of Volt, a party spokesperson confirms. According to its own statutes, the party must have two chairmen: a man and a woman. In January, however, it turned out that there was a male candidate, but no suitable women had come forward. After a new round, there is now one candidate left: Filippo, who performed work for the working group until November 2022. She left there ‘in connection with other ambitions’.
However, Filippo’s candidacy will not be voted on this Saturday at the Volt Congress. Because the current board has to implement the recommendations of the evaluation committee, the party considered this to be ‘not fair’, according to the spokesperson. The vote has been postponed to the autumn congress in November.
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