CDA party leader Pieter Heerma does not want to block a cooperation with Forum for Democracy in the provincial government in Brabant. He said that in the TV program WNL on Sunday.
In the province of Noord-Brabant, CDA and VVD are trying to form a new board with Forum for Democracy. There was much discussion about this within the CDA last week. Cooperation with FvD or the PVV is sensitive in that party, after the controversial tolerance construction in the first Rutte cabinet (2010-2012) with the PVV. In 2012, this led to an election defeat for the CDA and a role in the opposition.
But according to Heerma, times have changed: political parties are getting smaller and smaller and exclusion of parties leads to unmanageability, he thinks. He expects that the discussion will cease once the college in Brabant has arrived. “I dare to predict, whatever comes out: if that lecture is in place for a few weeks, you will not hear about it anymore, just like in Limburg.” The CDA also cooperates with Forum for Democracy in that province.
No cabinet to be formed
He does not want to anticipate any national cooperation with the PVV or Forum for Democracy. “We are still in the middle of a government’s term. There is still a lot to do, there are major issues in the area of public housing and demography.”
Excluding parties also leads to unmanageability, says Heerma. “You saw that in the cabinet formation in 2017: back then there was so much polarization in which parties excluded each other that there was almost no cabinet left to form.”
Heerma therefore chooses a different line than its predecessor Sybrand Buma. After the tolerance cabinet Rutte-1, in which the CDA cooperated with the PVV, he no longer wanted to form coalitions with Geert Wilders’ party.
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