The party combination GroenLinks-PvdA has placed Tilburg councilor Esmah Lahlah in 2nd place on the draft list of candidates for the new House of Representatives. Sources from The Hague confirmed this after reporting from RTL News. Lahlah is therefore directly behind party leader Frans Timmermans.
Lahlah comes from Helmond and became a non-partisan councilor in Tilburg in 2018. She joined GroenLinks in 2022. As party leader, she achieved a major win for the party in last year’s municipal elections.
She also gained national fame when, as a councilor, she lived on social assistance benefits for a month in 2021 to experience what it is like.
Top 5
Lahlah is higher on the list than the current party leader of GroenLinks Jesse Klaver. He is now at number 3. The top 5 also includes current PvdA MP Kati Piri and GroenLinks MP Lisa Westerveld.
The draft candidate list of the new party combination will be officially presented tomorrow. Also in the top 10 is former trade unionist Mariëtte Patijn, who was a director at the FNV trade union for many years.
To leave
The current MPs from GroenLinks and the PvdA will all be on the candidate list, except Attje Kuiken and Henk Nijboer from the PvdA and Corinne Ellemeet from GroenLinks. They indicated in the summer that they will leave the House of Representatives.
According to the latest Peilingwijzer, the GroenLinks-PvdA combination has 22 to 26 virtual seats in the House of Representatives. The elections are on November 22.
The list is a draft and will be officially adopted at the joint party congress. There is still a chance that the order of the candidates will be adjusted.
- GroenLinks and PvdA combine ideals in election manifesto
- Timmermans official PvdA/GroenLinks party leader
