Groenlinks is better off after the Pormes case

Believe it or not, that is what I think. More or less opposed to the main trend of opinion inside our party today. You care to know why? Read on.

Now that the dust is settled, one could try to answer a simple question. What have we learned from the Pormes case? No doubt, this question has already been answered in many other groenlinks blogs, and probably will come back in other instances of party-discussion. Lets start then reviewing what is in the table now.

In first place we have the reactions that medebestuurders have produced. Prominently comes the blog of Selcuk, with his by now famous sentence: “politics was nice, but now it left me with a sour taste”. Then we have the also well-known blog from Bretchje, in which there was talking of a pirric victory. A group of people “won” back Pormes into the party, but the Eerste Kamer Fractie is divided and the party loosed a good chairman. And, more diffuse than these positions, we have the comment heard in corridors and bars, were the partijraad is considered in several lights, none very positive. There is talk of political naiveté, there is talk of lack of expertise, and there is talk of reform, so that no similar mistakes will happen again. Finally we have the media, of course. Mildly, since we are not the VVD or the PvdA, the developments have been also covered, leaving in general the idea that a group of activists, scared on a supposed witch-hunt, lobbied successfully the partijraad for taking Pormes back.

What I personally miss from the whole debate is the thinking on the role that institutions have in a political party. Let's not go into the full debate of whom is right, if the bestuur kicking Pormes out of the party, or the partijraad taking him back. Let's instead remember the steps of the process. Around a year ago Pormes is accused again of having been in a terrorist training camp in Yemen. The bestuur contact him, and he denies it again. Concerned with the media attention that such an accusation might have, the bestuur sets up a research commission. The commission main result is that Pormes did not inform the party enough about his background. The bestuur fires him out of the party. Pormes goes to the geschillen commisie, and this commission gives right to the bestuur. Then Pormes goes to the partijraad, and the partijraad gives him right. Given that the partijraad is the last instance in our party, this is the final result, at least concerning the membership of Pormes to groenlinks. Conversations inside the Eerste Kamer are going on about the way Pormes will go on working there, and we will not talk about it, at least not before they are concluded.

So, why is the party damaged? It seems that the culture of many members in groenlinks have the assumption that commissions must be right. The partijraad should not have contradicted them. But hey, this is not an exact science, this is politics. Experts might be wrong, or might not consider all aspects of a problem. And that is why the partijraad, a groenlinks instance that gathers representatives from the whole country, has the last word. They received the whole report from bestuur, research commission and geschille commissie. They hopefully read them, hear the bestuur, hear Pormes, and decide to give Pormes right. Is that wrong? Should they have automatically raised their hands and give the bestuur right?

In my own view, a party is a delicate balance of opinions, both from experts and from politicians, from activists and strategists. And groenlinks have this balance implemented in the kind of processes described above. We do have checks and balances. And, as the result of the Pormes issue shows, they work. A collective might disagree with decisions taken by a director’s board. And in groenlinks, the evaluation of a collective is more important that the evaluation of a bestuur. Is that wrong?

I am not the only person inside groenlinks concerned with the trend that our leaders have taken in the last years. And I am neither the only one to consider that Herman Meijer was quite a good chairman. Working with Herman was a pleasure. But in many occasions his bestuur did not pay enough attention to the voices of the collective. Think in the position chosen around two years ago on integration: integration as emancipation. A sympathetic slogan in The Netherlands, a country famous by her emancipated policy. But was that a political position relevant for the migrants that live inside NL? We don't know, because this political standpoint was reached without the collaboration of the organized migrants inside groenlinks. Is that a coincidence that migrants voted a couple of months ago by the PvdA? perhaps not. Or think about the “partijbreed” discussion on migration. A nice resulting text, from which I was co-author. But did the bestuur organize the partijbreed discussion? Not at all. There was one debate in Den Haag, organized by the afdeling, and another in Utrecht, organized by the Philosophy werkgroep. Did the visietext reflect, or influence the way groenlinksers think on migration? probably not. Or at least, we cannot know, since groenlinksers were hardly consulted.

So yes, I think that we are better off after the Pormes case. Because hopefully the bestuur in particular, and our leaders in general, should have learned that in a political party you cannot stop hearing your members too long. Is that a lesson that leaves a sour taste in the mouth of a bestuurder? I hope not, at least, not from a groenlinks bestuurder.