Give left-centre-right a chance, CDA chairman tells Labour leader

CDA chairman Henk Bleker has urged Labour leader Job Cohen to give his backing to the option of a VVD, CDA and Labour cabinet, the Volkskrant reports on Thursday.

The call comes as former CDA prime minister Ruud Lubbers is put in charge of the cabinet negotiations.
Until now, Cohen has opposed such a combination because it would involve two parties which lost votes in the June 9 general election: Labour lost three seats and the CDA 20. The VVD gained nine.
‘The land has to be governed. Labour will be well aware of the new reality after the failure of purple plus,’ he said.
Anti-Islam
Bleker said he is not in favour of reopening talks on a right-wing coalition with the anti-Islam PVV. ‘If Mr Wilders returns from his holidays, he should remember why the CDA did not want this earlier,’ Bleker said, before listing Wilders plans to bring in a tax on headscarves, ban the Koran and halt development aid.
‘This would strike at the heart of the CDA,’ the Volkskrant quoted him as saying.
The first cabinet option looked at was a VVD, CDA and PVV combination. But the CDA refused to join the talks until the VVD and PVV had reached agreement on controversial issues. Wilders, whose party gained 14 seats in the election, refused to talk to the VVD without the CDA.
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