Sybrand van Haersma Buma

Early life

Sybrand van Haersma Buma descends from an old patrician family from Friesland. He is the son of Bernard van Haersma Buma (born 1932) who was the mayor of Workum (1962–70) and of Sneek (1970–93). His grandfather was the mayor of Stavoren. Both his father and grandfather belonged to the Christian Historical Union (CHU), that merged in 1980 with the Catholic People's Party (KVP) and the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) to form the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA).

Van Haersma Buma studied law at the University of Groningen (1983–89) and followed a course at the Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (1989–90). After his study he was employed at the Council of State and the Ministry of the Interior.

Politics

Van Haersma Buma was the secretary of the Christian Democratic Appeal in The Hague and a member of the executive committee of the Christian Democratic Appeal in the province of South Holland in the late 1990s. From January to June 2002 he was a member of the municipal council of Voorburg and since May 2002 he is a member of the Dutch House of Representatives. He became the party's spokesman on judicial affairs and is known for his law and order approach. From 2007 to 2010 he was the secretary of the Christian Democratic Appeal parliamentary group in the House of Representatives.

Sybrand van Haersma Buma and Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel in 2014

Although the Christian Democratic Appeal lost the elections of June 2010, Van Haersma Buma was re-elected. He supported his party chief, Maxime Verhagen, during the negotiations between the Christian Democratic Appeal and the conservative liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) of Mark Rutte and the populist Party for Freedom (PVV) of Geert Wilders which eventually resulted in a minority government of the VVD and Christian Democratic Appeal with parliamentary support of the PVV. After parliamentary leader Verhagen became Deputy Prime Minister in the new First Rutte cabinet Van Haersma Buma was elected as his successor.^[2]

After the fall of the cabinet, Van Haersma Buma criticised the PVV, the party responsible for the break-up of the cabinet.^[3] Shortly afterwards he announced his candidacy for the party's leadership. On 18 May 2012 he was elected as lijsttrekker (top candidate) of the Christian Democratic Appeal by a majority of the Christian Democratic Appeal members.^[4] In the meantime he and the leaders of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), the Christian Union (CU), the Democrats 66 and GroenLinks, the so-called Kunduz coalition (a budgetary agreement) for 2013.

After the Dutch general election, 2017, the CDA formed the Third Rutte cabinet alongside the VVD, D66 and CU. However Van Haersma Buma remained in the House of Representatives as parliamentary leader instead of entering the government.