Cracks emerged in the leadership of nationalist party Forum voor Democratie at the weekend, with the party’s soon-to-be leader in the senate criticising co-founder Thierry Baudet in an interview with the NRC.

In the interview, Henk Otten, who co-founded the party and will lead the 13-strong senate grouping in June, criticised the way Baudet is ‘taking the party to the right’ and flirting with alt-right ideas.

There is, Otten said, no room in Forum for ‘all that alt-right stuff’ and criticised Baudet’s 21-minute victory speech after last month’s provincial elections.

In addition, more people than Baudet should be involved in setting out the party’s course and the party’s hotline for reporting ‘left-wing indoctrination’ is ‘a misser’, Otten said.

Nor, said Otten, is he in favour of the party’s backing for a Nexit. And the ‘good people’ working for the party in the provinces have issues with Baudet’s controversial and romanticised statements about a ‘boreal word’ and ‘white dominated’ Europe, he told the paper.

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Baudet and his fellow MP Theo Hiddema have not yet commented publicly on the interview, but political commentators have questioned Otten’s motives in going public.

Is, for example, the interview a pre-cooked plan to make sure that the party can continue appeal to a broad spectrum of voters?

The NRC, in its analysis, said the interview would appear to show that Forum is seriously divided. ‘And Henk Otten considers the party is strong enough to call out this division,’ the paper said.

It remains to be seen if Baudet and his supporters are prepared to take a more back-seat role, as Otten would like to see, Volkskrant said in its report on the divisions.

The Volkskrant said Otten’s interview was putting the party through a new stress test and points out that he and Baudet have clashed earlier about Europe.

Asked in February if it is the party leader who will eventually chose the party’s course on Europe, Baudet said ‘naturally’, the paper points out.