De overrompeling van een plaatselijke afdeling van D'66

Samenvatting

In 1969 a number of merchants who owned small stores took over a local chapter of the Dutch left-of-center political party d66. They went to a meeting of the party en masse and outnumbered the regular members, thus being able to vote their own people into office. Regular members complained to the national office, and a compromise was worked out whereby the merchants retained 2 offices. The reason for the takeover was that the merchants felt threatened by the proposed renovation of the downtown area, which included the building of a large department store. Traditionally, d66 had had only a marginal interest in local politics, its main concerns being on the national level. However, a certain number of regular members and the merchants, hoped to be able to enter a list of candidates for local office, which they accomplished. The results were disappointing, however, since the party had been locally divided by the internal strife, which also tarnished its image among the electorate. Nationally, however, the party fared quite well. The local chapter managed to survive, but the takeover, which went against the norms of Dutch political life, failed due to lack of planning for the local elections and by the fact that internal division was caused by the more conservative views of the merchants. P. Tiersma.