Apparently my focus is on Dutch politics at the moment. Did I talk about the SP last week, now the Dutch liberal party is the prime example on how to destroy a brand. The VVD-brand that is. Unfortunately it all seems to be the doing of one person. Which goes to show and prove how much influence one person can have.
For the non-Dutch among us…. We had elections last week and all parties present a list of candidates the citizens can vote on. The liberal party chose their new political leader less than half a year ago and the person chosen only won by a small margin to the now number two on the voting list. What followed was an election in which the number two on the list gets more votes than the number two. So now the number two wants to be the leader.
She doesn’t explicitly say so but after the counting of votes is final she didn’t want to speak out. Totally “flabbergasted” by the news – which everyone saw coming since election night – she wanted to sleep on it, not commenting on the outcome. Today she held a press conference in a bar but did not show up at the time promised.
Pledging allegiance to the political leader chosen by the party could have been done without the press conference and at the time announced. But she made it a big deal and chose to make a show out of it. She pledged allegiance but suggested at the same time to the party leadership that she wanted a commission to speak out on this unique – it never happened before – result. Thereby throwing the party into a period of turmoil and completely ruining any chances for the VVD to be seen as a – last resort – choice for government by the Christian Democrats.
It goes to show how one person, through one action can bungle a brand and mess up her personal brand in the process.