CDA won't cooperate with populist party if Mona Keijzer becomes leader

If Mona Keijzer is elected CDA party leader, the party will not cooperate with populist party PVV in a coalition, she said to broadcaster WNL on Wednesday. The party came off very badly when it teamed up with Geert Wilders' party in the first Rutte coalition, and the CDA learnt lessons from that, she said. "We're really not going to do that again, it tore the party apart."

She doesn't want to rule out working with the Netherlands' other populist party, Thierry Baudet's FvD, just yet. The CDA is already in a coalition with the FvD in Noord-Brabant's provincial government. According to Keijzer, the party must also be open to this cooperation at a national level. "We don't know how that will work out. I think you should always give everyone a chance," she said.

Though she added that she does not always agree with Baudet's statements. "When I see what Baudet sometimes says, I would like to say the same thing to him that I sometimes say to my children: dude, wash out your mouth. You don't talk like that. I simply find that's inappropriate. And what he says about the European Union and NATO, there he just harms Dutch interests."

Keijzer is running against Hugo de Jonge, currently Minister of Public Health and Deputy Prime Minister, for CDA leader.