Dutch fundamentalist Protestants again say “no” to women MPs

The fundamentalist Protestant party SGP, which has three MPs in the current parliament, has again rejected calls to formally allow women to stand for political office.

Party members voted by 299 to 53 against a change to the party’s statutes, put forward by Lilian Janse, the first woman to have won a council seat on behalf of the party, and her local branch in Vlissingen.

The right-wing SGP believes the country should be governed “entirely on the basis of the ordinances of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures”, and therefore holds that women should not play an active role in political life.

Janse, who has been a councillor for 11 years, wants to stand for parliament at the next election but is prevented from doing so by party rules which state that becoming “part of political bodies” conflicts with “women’s calling”.

The party has been embroiled in a long legal battle about the role of women.

In 2013, following rulings by the Dutch supreme court and the European Court of Human Rights, the SGP agreed to drop its ban on including women on candidate lists. However, the party’s founding principles were not amended — a compromise seen at the time as politically strategic.

The party board said earlier this month it “does not consider it wise to reopen debate” on this arrangement, as called for by Janse, and called on members to reject the motion.

Instead, “the board wants to direct its full energy toward fulfilling the party’s mission of promoting the blessings of Biblical values and norms in the public domain”, officials said.

Janse’s motion proposed replacing the current wording with a new formulation that would allow women to decide for themselves whether a political role is appropriate, “with due regard for the place given to her by God”.