Trots op Nederland
Trots op Nederland ( TON or ToNL for short , German Stolz auf die Netherlands ) is a right-wing populist party in the Netherlands. It was founded on October 17th, 2007 by Rita Verdonk (formerly VVD ). After the party's polls had predicted many seats for a while, it did not win a single seat in the 2010 general election . However, the party's politicians were elected to several local councils in the local council elections in March 2010 .
Emergence
From 2003 to 2007, Verdonk was Integration Minister in Jan Peter Balkenende's Christian-Liberal cabinet . She acted very hard and determined and met with a lot of criticism. A vote of no confidence by parliament was followed by the fact that she was no longer accepted into the cabinet in 2007. Until 2010 she was then a simple member of parliament.
Since 2002 she has been a member of the right-wing liberal Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie . In 2006 it only narrowly failed because of the top candidacy for the early parliamentary elections . The VVD parliamentary group excluded Verdonk in 2007 because of critical comments, and later left the party.
In the 2006 elections, Verdonk received more individual votes than the VVD's top candidate and could be sure of a certain support among the population. On October 17, 2007, the non-attached MP announced not only that she was leaving the party, but also that a political movement, Trots op Nederland, was being founded . The party has no members and therefore does not participate in state party funding.
Development from 2008 to today
In the course of 2008, TON achieved up to 15 percent in the polls. In 2009, however, it became clear that Verdonk's former VVD party friend Geert Wilders was most successful in addressing the right-wing voters with his Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV). In the polls, TON has fallen significantly since then - also as a result of internal party disputes.
While the PVV only ran in the local elections in March 2010 in Almere and The Hague , TON ran in a number of municipalities and achieved a (though not representative) share of 1.2 percent with 80,867 votes nationwide. Verdonk's party achieved its best value with 14.3 percent in Den Helder ; In total, it was able to win 60 municipal mandates.
An advertisement for the parliamentary elections on June 9, 2010 received a stir because of its amateur character. In the film, for example, a staged scene shows an old woman being attacked. Then the Red Cross paramedics who want to help the woman who was knocked to the ground are beaten by young people. Rita Verdonk walks into the foreground and comments on these and other events. Finally, she introduces her team: “I'm Rita. And this is Artur, our finance man. And Karel, the doctor. And Kees, the cop. ”The Red Cross complained about the film because it saw its impartiality violated.
In the 2010 general election , TON received 0.56% of the vote. Rita Verdonk lost the mandate she had received through VVD.
On October 21, 2011, Rita Verdonk announced that she would leave politics. She wants to set priorities in her life. In addition, the Rutte I cabinet had adopted many points from TON's party program; with a left cabinet she would have wanted to continue the fight. A general meeting was to decide on the further fate of the party. TON council members in individual parishes said they would continue under the party name. However, eleven elected representatives had already turned their backs on the party in October 2011, three of them in Pijnacker-Nootdorp , where Verdonk himself lives. In Lelystad, for example, the TON council members continue to work as Lelystad's concern .
On June 19, 2012, TON announced that it would run as Democratisch Politiek Keerpunt (DPK) in the early parliamentary elections in September 2012 together with the Onafhankelijke Burger Partij formation founded by Hero Brinkman . On November 18, 2012, it was said that the failure in the election (no seat) was due to the top candidate Brinkman. TON ended the collaboration with OBP and Brinkman.
In the local elections on March 19, 2014, local groups from Trots op Nederland ran in some municipalities, but were only able to defend a few of the mandates obtained in 2010. The last major city in which the party still had a council seat was Tilburg .
Alignment
The party wants strict enforcement of existing laws, fewer civil servants, a fight against crime and fewer traffic jams. The ban on smoking in restaurants is to be abolished. Pedophiles should either be locked up for life or castrated. In particular, the party addresses foreign crime and radicalization among Muslims.
Rita Verdonk and her party are ideologically assigned to right-wing populism by the political scientists Frank Geldmacher and Andreas Rauch. So be it u. a. a typical “one-topic party” in which the fight against crime, i.e. internal security, and education policy focused on poorly integrated immigrants. The party organization is mainly tailored to the strong leader Rita Verdonk and addressing the voters is easy. Voters' emotions would be addressed, fears stoked and simplified answers offered.
Web links
- Party's website (Dutch)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nederlands Dagblad: Gemeenteraadsverkiezingen 2010 ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ NRC: Verkiezingsfilmpje Verdonk op Youtube hit ( Memento of 9 November 2011 at the Internet Archive ) 11 May, 2010.
- ↑ Nu.nl: Rode Kruis boos op Verdonk om Verkiezingsspot, accessed on June 12, 2010.
- ↑ Uitslag verkiezing leden Tweede Kamer van 9 june 2010
- ↑ NOS: Rita Verdonk stapt uit de politiek , accessed on October 30, 2011.
- ↑ Volkskrant: Trots ziet toekomst zonder Verdonk , accessed on October 30, 2011.
- ↑ Nu.nl: Ton ziet elf raadsleden vertrekken , accessed on October 30, 2011.
- ↑ Trots op Nederland: Democratisch Politiek Keerpunt gaat van start , accessed on June 19, 2012
- ^ Frank Geldmacher / Andreas Rauch: The end of the multicultural society - right-wing populism in the value consciousness of the Dutch . In: The New Order . tape 62 , no. 1 , February 2008, p. 65–74, ( tuomi-media.de [PDF; accessed on June 13, 2008]).