G500 is a youth organization that tries to promote the interests of young people. They do this by penetrating existing parties and they hope to be able to change the party program from within. In this way, they hope that three parties, namely the PvdA, VVD and the CDA, will adopt their positions so that, through cooperation between these three parties, laws can ultimately be drawn up to benefit the youth in the Netherlands. The organization mainly attracts young, ambitious students who want to make a career in politics.
Incorporation
G500 was founded by Sywert van der Lienden and associates on April 8, 2012. The organization is intended to better promote the interests of young people in Dutch politics. What is new about the organization is that they try to increase support for their ideas through existing politics. They do this by going to party conferences in cohorts and voting there according to their party program. In this way, they hope to implement their principles in the party program in 3 parties, making cooperation between the chosen 3 parties possible on the points that G500 wants to implement. It is remarkable that young people are urged not to support the party principle of the party in question, but to support the party principles of the G500. There is a controversy surrounding this aspect because previously party loyalty and support for a certain ideology were mainly important.
Social media
Part of the association is that it makes extensive use of modern campaign techniques. For example, social media is used successfully to make a name for their foundation. Many see the G500 as part of the trend to adopt political tools brought over from the United States and use them in Dutch politics. By using social media, the association hopes to project a ‘young, fresh image’. A lot of money has been spent on the logos and distribution materials. This money will have been advanced by the initiators of this movement.
The political parties
G500 has chosen 3 political parties to implement the plan. These are the PvdA, the VVD and the CDA. These three parties were chosen because, according to G500, they represent the middle in politics. The G500 does not like so-called ‘flank parties’, because they have ideals that are not moderate. This choice is interesting because in the elections the flank parties on the left and right seem to do best. The G500 is trying to turn this tide by promoting cooperation between the parties. A possible pitfall here is that the political parties in the middle lose too much of their ‘color’ and thus also lose voters who want a clear voice and a clear ideology.
Criticism of the G500
There is a lot of criticism of the G500. For example, Sywert van der Lienden is regularly accused of being a ‘people’s man’ who tries to profit from the G500. He would use the G500 as a stepping stone to a political career and he would use the organization to profile himself as a ‘promising young person’. Many people therefore think, quite cynically, that Sywert van der Lienden will become the next Prime Minister. The party therefore has a very high ‘balls’ image.
Other criticism is that it is not the correct order to put your own positions before the positions of a party. They accuse the G500 of only representing partial interests and therefore not looking at the overall picture. There are also people who say that the G500 polarizes society because it emphasizes a divide between young and old. G500 operates in a way that makes it seem as if the elderly are the perpetrators in society. For example, a certain Mr Verhoef writes in the Volkskrant that he is ‘sick and tired of being dismissed by guys like Sywert van der Lienden as an antisocial older person who eats the pot.’ The gentleman is especially angry because he built the welfare state with his own hands after the Second World War.
Speaking of wrong order, many people believe that you first have to be with a party for a long time and serve the party before you resort to grotesque actions. These people are based on the traditional ideal that politicians become great ‘within the party’ and that they slowly acquire more and more substantive baggage to do their job well. So work first, and then do politics. By working you slowly build up practical experience and knowledge that will help you to be a good politician. The G500 seems to want to do it the other way around: engage in politics and only then see how things work in practice. A point of criticism about this is that the young people do not yet know the ins and outs because they have only studied and have not yet worked and gained practical experience, not even within a party.
The ‘winner effect’
In itself this is a classic picture: the youth who are eager to take on high positions and the old officers who believe that their expertise and experience are an added value compared to these enthusiastic youth. In this context, people sometimes talk about the ‘winner effect’; young people are attracted en masse to something because it appears to be ‘happening’ and because they want to have the feeling of ‘belonging to the winners’. G500 is currently experiencing a big boom and a lot of fuss is being made about it, so it seems to be attractive for young people to want to ‘be part’ of the movement . Many young people also think that being part of the movement will help their careers because it shows that they are ‘active’ and ‘entrepreneurial’. The question is whether these students will still support the movement once the initial hype has passed. It is also
remarkable that party history and party culture no longer seem to matter. The G500 goes out to party conferences regardless of the political color of the parties. They are mainly concerned with providing support for certain points. The G500 is therefore a fairly ideology-free party that can gain a large following because it does not matter what your political ideology is. By actually wanting everything that seems like a good idea at first glance, the association can gather a lot of support, after all, no one is against better education. Populist rhetoric therefore seems to be a hallmark of the G500.
The party is said to have been founded as a result of ‘fun’ by three students and these students are sometimes accused of ‘just doing something’ and not having really thought through the possible consequences of their initiative. The students would especially have been looking forward to some fun and would especially have enjoyed being on TV. The accusation is also that it is a lot of bravado and boasting, but little substance and that there are no grounds for a sustainable project.
Finally, many people say that the G500 mainly represents the interests of highly educated young people and not the interests of poorly educated young people. This is because the G500 mainly consists of highly educated young people who appear to be doing well.
Support
There is also a lot of support for the movement. Shortly after the foundation was announced, about 1,000 people permanently registered for the foundation. More than 2000 people ‘like’ the G500 page on Facebook. The association therefore appears to meet a need that exists in society. Sywert van der Lienden has also been positively received by the television program ‘De Wereld Draait Door’. This program also regularly looked critically at the young dog, but in any case he did get a lot of prime time.
About 300 people attended the first G500 conference who were interested in becoming active within the association. What was striking was the neat and slick impression that everything made. The association was therefore able to raise a lot of money. At the conference, the mostly students received master classes from experts in the field of politics. Much of the theory discussed comes from the political science study, where 22-year-old Sywert van der Lienden is a first-year student. In this way, the members were prepared to exert political pressure on the parties they joined as part of the G500.
The elderly also appear to support the G500, as posted on the Facebook page. This means that older people also want to take responsibility for the well-being of future generations.
And now on
It is still unknown how the political parties will respond to the intrusion of young people at party conferences. Many parties have regulations that require you to be a member for a number of years before you can vote at conferences. In that respect, the G500 would then become a long-term project.
In the coming months and years it will become clear what impact G 500 has on politics. And whether certain prominent figures within the association will successfully make their move into politics.