“Dutch Elections 2012: My Dinner with SP, PvdA & GroenLinks”

“Dutch Elections 2012: My Dinner with SP, PvdA & GroenLinks”

Another fallen Cabinet. Another national election. Time to resurrect “Political PARTY with Maurice de Hond” at Boom Chicago! The only show where Dutch politicians improvise with us onstage.  

Who was the best politician onstage?

This year’s guests:

Socialist Party SP – Ronald van Raak (#3).

Labor PvdA – Martijn van Dam (#7).

Green GroenLinks – Tofik Dibi (#10).

(In 2010 we had Femke Halsema, Maxime Verhagen, and even Hero Brinkman.)

Every politician improvises by dressing up as another politician and answering questions.

SP.

Ronald van Raak played Mark Rutte. According to the SP, Dutch Prime Minister Rutte does not always tell the truth. He came out and said ‘Tonight, I’m trying something new. I’m not going to lie.’ Cue the Pinocchio video. Nice laughs.

PvdA.

Martijn van Dam played Mark Rutte as well. But he did it better. We covered the lying. But Martijn took it a step further. He played up the fact that Rutte & the VVD party are running a very negative campaign.

Don’t forget: the politician is not the only one in costume. While Martijn van Dam was dressed as Mark Rutte, I was dressed up as Martijn van Dam.

Here it gets interesting: Martijn van Dam got so into character as Mark Rutte that he started attacking his own party.  The attacks got more & more outrageous. Then he turned to me and said ‘Now Martijn, what do you have to say to THAT?’

He totally turned the tables on me. I just had to laugh. Well done.

GroenLInks.

Tofik Dibi played Big, Bad Minister of Justice Ivo Opstelten. Let’s just say he looks better as Geert Wilders (on the cover of Vrij Nederland). http://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/2824/Politiek/article/detail/3195980/2012/02/22/Tofik-Dibi-omgetoverd-tot-Geert-Wilders.dhtml

Tofik Dibi gave a great interview. He acknowledged that there was no way he’d be reelected to Parliament, so he had nothing to lose. He admitted that it was a big mistake to challenge Jolanda Sap for the party leadership. He talked about texting with Geert Wilders – it’s easier than you think to get a response, since Wilders is so lonely. And he predicted that GroenLinks probably wouldn’t survive much longer, and they should merge with D66.

This is the American equivalent of saying “Don’t vote for me! My whole party is a joke! The Democrats should just merge with the Republicans.” Sacrilicious.

On the whole, the winner was PvdA Martijn van Dam. Congratulations! You got my vote.