Former PvdA boss Ad Melkert initially did not want to watch the TV series last spring The year of Fortuyn. After friends told him it was okay, he tried anyway. It hit him like a sledgehammer. “The way Ramsey Nasr played me was amazing. He walks just like me, with this hunched back. They were always like, ‘Man, just go straight ahead’.”

Twenty years after the turbulent 2002 elections and the assassination of Pim Fortuyn, Melkert has changed little. He hardly seems to have aged and still thinks the same. He seems more relaxed, which makes his somewhat villainous sense of humor come across better.

For the first time he tells in detail about his experiences in the “Year of Fortuyn”. He is interviewed in Haarlem by the journalist Coen Verbraak at the history festival of Historisch Nieuwsblad with the local audience. But cameras and microphones are not welcome, because what happened back then is still very important to him.

popular anger

These events can be summarized as follows: The polls have been showing for months that the elections in May 2002 would be a neck-and-neck race between PvdA leader Melkert and VVD leader Dijkstal, even though the outsider Pim Fortuyn was getting a lot of media attention aroused his attacks on Islam and on “Purple”, the coalition of PvdA, VVD and D66 that had been in power for eight years at the time.

At the beginning of March, to the astonishment of Melkert and many others, Fortuyns Liveable Rotterdam suddenly became the biggest party in Rotterdam. That evening there was a televised debate glorifying the victorious Fortuyn, but Melkert sat sullenly and refused to congratulate Fortuyn.

The debate became television history; See how it went here:

Fortuyn then rose in the national polls until he was assassinated in Media Park on May 6, nine days before the House of Representatives elections. Popular anger flared up against the “left”, embodied in many eyes by Melkert, who from then on was no longer allowed to appear in public.

Melkert had met Fortuyn once when they had to debate in front of a jury on television. Fortuyn won because “I chose the content and he chose the impact”. Melkert considered himself someone who blew all winds to attract attention. “When it was fashionable, he was on the far left. He wrote in Marxist jargon that made you dizzy.”

In 2002, according to Melkert, one was content with the striving for effectiveness. “Fortuyn was eloquent, sure, and had considerable knowledge, but he used it for effect, not to get anywhere. He was Trump’s predecessor. You play with your gut feeling.”

Melkert acknowledges that Fortuyn expressed the feelings of people who did not feel heard. “But he did it in a way that doesn’t get you anywhere. He has started a culture war in which multicultural society is not a choice but a fact.”

Blame the media

Melkert also concedes that he should have had the professionalism to congratulate Fortuyn in the illustrious night’s debate. But he blames the NOS and moderator Paul Witteman.

He accuses the NOS of breaking with the tradition of only inviting the leaders of the major national parties. “This is media manipulation”. He accuses Witteman of throwing him off the grid by “asking him like a school teacher” why he didn’t congratulate the winner.

In general, he believes that “excessive media attention” has made Fortuyn great.

“I was freezing”

As in The year of Fortuyn can also be seen, the day before the murder, Melkert and Fortuyn had an argument at the AD. “He was emotional there. I tried to keep it flat but he was very uncomfortable.”

The next day, at 6 p.m., Melkert was sitting with his employees in a Chinese restaurant in Amersfoort. “I was grumpy. We had been in a working-class neighborhood and there was mistrust there. We had just ordered Foe Yong Hai when we heard that Fortuyn had been shot. A shudder ran through me. I was freezing.”

That evening, after the murder, he was in his room in the Binnenhof when a mob threw stones at his window. Some tried to climb up. Through secret passages, he reached a car that was attacked when the gates blocked.

His driver escaped anyway. He wanted to seek shelter at a friend’s house, but when he got there, they immediately said: “There you have Melkert!”. The next morning he woke up in a bare apartment in Amsterdam. “Then I realized the world had changed.”

He received countless threats, but only felt threatened when, after Fortuyn’s funeral, a woman hissed, “Are you alright now?” “I realized she could have had a knife, too.” Later the woman brought him flowers. “She apologized, she had thought that Volkert van der G. and not I had murdered Fortuyn.”

Twenty years later, Melkert still doesn’t know what he or the PvdA did wrong. At most, he may think he was too serious and too tense. The murder of Fortuyn is a lasting trauma for him. Whenever he passes the Medienpark in Hilversum, where Fortuyn was murdered, he feels tears on his forehead.