Between four and eight seats in the polls. A retired party chairman. Rumbling in the party.
Not a good time to become a party leader, it seems. Nevertheless, Henri Bontenbal, now a member of parliament of the CDA, dares to take up the challenge, sources from The Hague reported to various media on Friday evening. On Monday afternoon, the new party leader in Amersfoort will be officially nominated by the board.
Bontenbal, a 40-year-old physicist from Rotterdam, specializes in energy and sustainability. He is in favor of nuclear energy. Bontenbal entered the House of Representatives in January 2022 and previously worked for grid operator Stedin. In any case, this means that he has sufficient in-house knowledge for substantive climate debates with D66 leader Rob Jetten (outgoing minister of Climate and Energy) and PvdA party leader Frans Timmermans, who has devoted himself in recent years as European Commissioner for the Green Deal to make Europe more sustainable.
‘No screaming’
Bontenbal is known as a man of substance and a good debater. “People want solid, calm politics,” he said in March an interview in Fidelity. “No shouting. Talk about something you know about, present plans you’ve thought about. I see voter appreciation for politicians who are not driven crazy by one-liners.”
Energy expert Remco de Boer calls Bontenbal “social, extremely smart and very strategic”, in the TV program One today. For years, De Boer made an energy podcast together with Bontenbal.
Also read this article: Henri Bontenbal on extra climate measures
Hell of a job
But the Rotterdammer faces a hellish job at the CDA. Three months before the elections (on 22 November), the CDA is in a bad position. The party now has fourteen seats in the House of Representatives, but according to Peilingwijzer, a weighted average of a number of opinion polls, at least half of that is lost.
The competition has never been this great. BBB of Caroline van der Plas seems to be getting a lot of seats, some of which come from the CDA. And then the participation of the popular former CDA member Pieter Omtzigt is still hanging over the market. Omtzigt is now on vacation and will then announce whether he will participate in the elections with his own party.
Niek-Jan van Kesteren, who took his leave as CDA senator in June, warned earlier in NRC that his party is “in a crucial, decisive phase”. “It’s a matter of survival. Either we can move on, or it will become life-threatening.” According to him, the CDA should have made a timely choice as to what kind of party it wants to be. “You should do that when you are a little bit older. Now it may be too late.”
Read here the interview with Niek Jan van Kesteren
Unrest
The party is also restless internally. The past few years have been difficult. There was the unfortunate party leader election in 2020 in which Minister Hugo de Jonge was narrowly elected, then withdrew, after which not the number two Pieter Omtzigt, but Minister Wopke Hoekstra was appointed party leader. Omtzigt left a few months later. Hoekstra’s leadership was also unsuccessful.
On Thursday, CDA chairman Hans Huibers suddenly resigned. He was appointed in 2021 to bring peace to the party, but has recently come under fire. He would be too invisible and the procedure for the new party leader would take too long. Huibers spoke on Thursday evening about “reports in the media about things that would not have been handled properly”. “The messages contain anonymous quotes with half and whole untruths. Those who know me better know that this is not true. I cannot and do not want to work in such an environment,” he wrote in a statement on the CDA website.
Unknown
In short, things are messy in the party and Bontenbal has to do something about it. But with what story should he win back the voter? Ambiguity about what the party stands for is one of the main reasons for the electoral decline. In recent years, attempts have been made to reanimate the classic CDA story – norms and values, sense of community – but so far without success. If the new leader can convey that story with conviction, there is still electoral potential for Christian Democracy, political scientist Tom van der Meer stated last week It FD. “Research by the Social and Cultural Planning Office shows that the way we live together in the Netherlands is one of the biggest concerns of citizens. And the CDA is still on this theme issue ownership.”
But the question is whether that will work. Bontenbal, who still has to be officially elected by the members at the party congress on September 23 (opposing candidates can register until August 24, 6 p.m.), is unknown to the general public and does not have a lot of votes.
Although the CDA can cherish a small glimmer of hope. For this, the party must think back to Jan Peter Balkenende, the then completely unknown CDA MP who was elected party chairman in 2001, then won the elections and became prime minister. So who knows.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper on August 12, 2023.
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