Dutch lower house elects PVV MP Martin Bosma as new chair

After hours of contentious debate, PVV MP Martin Bosma was elected the new chair of the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament. Bosma was elected with a total of 75 votes in favor during the Thursday evening balloting.

The runner-up was GroenLinks-PvdA MP Tom van der Lee. He received 66 votes. A total of 148 out of 150 members were present, of which a majority was required to elect a new chair. The election was conducted through an individual, secret ballot by the Members of Parliament, with ballot papers placed in a tin.

It took two rounds of voting for Bosma to secure the necessary majority. In the first round, Bosma received 71 votes and Van de Lee took 61. Thirteen votes were cast for MPs who had not put themselves forward. A dozen of those went to the interim chair, VVD MP Roelien Kamminga. PVV MP Raymond de Roon earned one, while three others were deemed invalid under ballot rules.

Martin Bosma has been a member of the Tweede Kamer since 2006 and has attempted to become the chair twice before. Critics highlight his controversial past, including coining terms like “head rag tax” and supporting the anti-Moroccan statements from party leader Geert Wilders.

Bosma said Thursday that it is acceptable to take issue with parliamentary debates, as long as parliamentarians remain polite. Bosma was also grilled because his party has often spoken negatively about the validity of the judiciary and parliament in recent years.

Bosma does not think the Tweede Kamer is a sham, as his party leader once said. But he also believes that MPs should be able to make statements to this effect.

“There must be room for all critics if this arises from a mandate from the voter,” Bosma continued. According to the PVV, this does not mean that people can say anything they want. For example, he thinks political party Denk’s characterization of the extreme right is unacceptable. Bosma considered it to "essentially” be a comparison of the PVV and the Nazi party.

As far as Bosma is concerned, part of the responsibility for decency lies with MPs themselves. If the Tweede Kamer chair sees no reason to intervene, parliamentarians are free to address each other. As chair, Bosma promised to stand "above the parties" and be neutral. "That's our tradition."

The PVV also wants to limit the influence of lobbyists. "Because that undermines our credibility as the Tweede Kamer." He also promised that "the lights will go out" at 11 p.m. in the Tweede Kamer, which has had several instances in recent years where debate continued into the overnight hours. He calls this the rule of the "guillotine".

The other candidate, Tom van der Lee, has been a member of the Tweede Kamer since 2017. The 59-year-old notably chaired the parliamentary inquiry into gas extraction in Groningen. He previously led Oxfam Novib and worked as a spokesperson for the GroenLinks faction in the Tweede Kamer.

Both Van der Lee and Bosma are members of the Tweede Kamer's daily board, the Presidium

Bosma will succeed Vera Bergkamp, who served as the Chair of the Tweede Kamer from April 2021 until December 2023. VVD MP Roelien Kamminga has been serving as the interim chair since the inauguration of the new Tweede Kamer last week, but she announced on Sunday that she did not wish to continue in this role.