Senator Paul Cliteur of Forum for Democracy (FVD) is also resigning. He says he can “no longer produce the motivation” after the unrest within the party. Cliteur guided Thierry Baudet in Leiden during his PhD and is considered his intellectual mentor. Cliteur remains a member of the party.
“My fate is tied to his,” Cliteur told the news agency about Baudet ANP. “I joined the party because of his vision.” He is not satisfied with the way in which Baudet has been approached by others within FVD because of “a few texts that have nothing to do with what the party stands for”.
FVD was discredited last weekend by anti-Semitic statements by members of the youth organization JFVD. Several senators and party members then pressed for the departure of JFVD chairman Freek Jansen. Baudet then decided to make his position of party leader available. Jansen, who is considered to be Baudet’s right-hand man, gave up his place as candidate Member of Parliament.
Cliteur praises Baudet for staying behind Jansen. He denounces the way his former PhD candidate was subsequently attacked, including in an opinion piece by fellow senator Annabel Nanninga on the website The Post Online. That played a role in his decision to leave, he says.
Cliteur has been associated with FVD since 2015. During the 2017 House of Representatives elections, he was the list pusher and from 2019 to 2020, Cliteur was parliamentary leader in the Senate.
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