Thierry Baudet Temporarily Steps Down to Lead FVD’s Municipal Expansion

On 7 January, Forum for Democracy party leader Thierry Baudet announced that he is temporarily stepping down from the House of Representatives in order to focus on building the new party groups at municipal level. He made this announcement in the following tweet:

Forum for Democracy has grown to more than 70,000 members, by far the largest political family in the Netherlands! On 18 March we will be contesting elections in more than 100 municipalities. To manage all of this properly and to support this growth in a controlled way, I will temporarily leave the House of Representatives. I will not receive any severance pay. I will work extremely hard until the summer, first to organise the campaign and then to help all new party groups to become firmly established. I will of course remain Party Chairman and have complete confidence in my temporary replacement, Tom Russcher.

Tom Russcher will replace Thierry Baudet in the House of Representatives. Tom states:

I am very much looking forward to starting next week as a temporary member of the House of Representatives. Among other things, I will focus on the policy areas of housing, sport and students. After the end of my replacement period, I too will of course make no use of the severance pay scheme.