2023-11-20 13:07:17
Pieter Omtzigt, leader of the New Social Contract (NSC), in Amersfoort (Netherlands), November 10, 2023. PIROSCHKA VAN DE WOUW / REUTERS
Amina, she says, has never thought about going to vote, but she could change her mind by Wednesday, November 22. That day, during the legislative elections, the Dutch will go to the polls to turn the page on the Mark Rutte era, the liberal leader who governed the kingdom for thirteen years. This fifty-year-old of Algerian origin, who prefers to withhold her last name, lives in one of the apartment blocks in Immerloo II, a district of Arnhem, in the east of the country. There, nearly 70% of the inhabitants are of non-European origin, 60% of them only have a primary school diploma and 96% of the housing is HLM: Immerloo II is the poorest area of this rich country. The average annual household income there is 27,700 euros, almost three times lower than the national average.
Leaving the community center, Amina is not discouraged by the pouring rain from detailing her sudden interest in politics. Or rather, for Pieter Omtzigt, the leader of the New Social Contract (NSC), the party created in August by this Christian-democrat dissident who became the spoilsport of the election.
This man defended, alone against almost everyone – and against the government of Mark Rutte – the victims of the enormous so-called “benefits” scandal. A system of algorithms developed in 2013 to detect family allowance fraud amounted, in fact, to a sort of racial profiling with dramatic consequences: wrongly accused, tens of thousands of families, often poor, were forced to to repay amounts to which they were truly entitled.
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Hunted by the tax services, some plunged into debt, others were evicted from their homes, some 2,000 children were taken from the custody of their parents. Around 90,000 young people were victims of discrimination which the authorities recognized, in 2022 alone, as resulting from “institutional racism”.
“Pieter Omtzigt demanded justice for all these people, remembers Amina. In this neighborhood, we don’t talk much, but I hope to convince people to vote for him. » The theme of discrimination comes far behind immigration, housing, climate or health in the concerns of Dutch voters, but the fight of the leader of the NSC, coupled with his desire to “change the system”, earned him great popularity. His return to The Hague at the end of 2021, after a sixteen-week burnout following the barrage of insults addressed to him by adversaries, but also political friends, marked the beginning of his rise.
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