In the last decade, the CDA profiled itself as a governing party, closing gap to rightwing policy of the VVD and personified in its appointed [!] leader Wopke Hoekstra after the party refused to accept the popular Pieter Omtzigt.

There was little difference in Rutte IV cabinet policy and party program of the VVD, the distinction where Christian Democrats stood for vanished. Losing members and massive election losses, seems to have hit home ... much too late. The party of Dries Van Agt and Ruud Lubbers is no more ...

The new leader by default clearly opts to return to its centrist position ... a bit of the introduction by Bontenbal.

Our choice the center to bring people together

I attach great importance to the exemplary function of the House of Representatives. Our behavior matters. Many residents of the Netherlands have little faith in politicians, research shows time and time again. This has to do with the behavior in the House of Representatives. But also with fake news and conspiracy theories, the insults and full and half threats. It not only leads to an increasingly toxic political climate, but also to a society under high tension.

That is why the CDA deliberately opts for the middle: thorough, nuanced and substantiated. We do not magnify contradictions for our own gain, but always try to find connections and support for feasible solutions. We stand for a politics of the common good over the partial interests of groups. That is not boring, but much needed.

Ruud Lubbers already said that the political center is not an end in itself, but the concrete result of craftsmanship, advocacy and tolerance. That is our job as CDA. In the middle of the people. In the middle of every city and every village. In the middle of the associations and organizations that make our society possible. Midway between street and state. In the middle you don't have to shout, provoke or polarize to be heard. That's not our style.

Fortunately, most people are in that middle: a large silent majority, who do not watch a talk show every evening or are shouting loudly in the newspaper. They are the police officers on the street, the teachers in front of the classroom, the informal carers, the neighborhood fathers in the neighborhood and the volunteers behind the bar in the football canteen. The people who do the right thing by themselves and are not seen and recognized enough for that. The middle groups that support society and look after the other. We are there for them. Out of conviction and out of the realization that without them society would fall apart like loose sand.

If you are too busy with yourself, you don't see the other person enough. This has become painfully clear in recent years. That is why the problems of the Groningen people penetrated politically in The Hague so late. That is why the benefit parents were not seen for a long time. That is why Remkes had to be involved in seeing the desperation in the eyes of very reasonable people. Being seen: that is what large parts of our society have been missing.

That is also why we as CDA have started with living room conversations in the country. Out of sight of the cameras, our ministers and members of parliament go into the country to talk to people at home, and above all to listen.

That is why I called for a substantive election campaign. No political theatre, no blackening and shouting. Let all parties put their best ideas on the table. Then the voter can make a judgment on 22 November.

'Sapere aude'