The failed alliance with the anti-immigration PVV should be aired during the party’s leadership election, former Christian Democrat minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin told tv programme Nieuwsuur on Wednesday evening.

The Christian Democrats and the right-wing liberal VVD governing parties had an alliance with the PVV until party leader Geert Wilders walked away from austerity talks last month and a new election was called for September.
Since the collapse of the alliance, candidates in the leadership contest have been busy distancing themselves from the PVV. Caretaker junior economics minister Henk Bleker, one of the candidates, has even said the CDA should not talk about the alliance.
Harmony
Hirsch Ballin, one of the CDA members who spoke out against forming the alliance in 2010, told Nieuwsuur: ‘Keeping quiet will not lead to harmony within the party.’
He thinks the CDA will only win back the trust of voters if members are honest about what happened with the PVV. ‘Keeping silent casts a cloud over the party,’ he said.
The CDA’s popularity is at an all-time low, with opinion polls giving it around 13 seats, compared with their current total of 21.