Voting with Volkers — Imran Cherradi Benssebahe: CDA’s new generation (Interview)
By: Sam Volkers
In the mind of most people, CDA is a party for old Protestants and Catholics living in small towns and villages, far away from cities like Amsterdam. However, a closer look would prove this stereotype wrong. In the coming municipal elections, CDA will be the party with the highest amount of young candidates under thirty. One of these new young candidates is the 19 years old Imran Cherradi Benssebahe
Born and raised in Amsterdam-Noord, Imran is an Amsterdammer through and through. Although for most of his life he had never thought about becoming politically active, an art assignment about toxic masculinity introduced him to public figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jordan Peterson. After this, Imran became increasingly interested in politics and started looking for a political party to join that fit his values: ‘When I looked for a political party to join, I really was looking for a party that didn’t lean too much to left, so a lot of parties fell off already. And then I was also looking for a party which was more conservative and traditional in its values. And so I looked into CDA, PVV and VVD. In the end, CDA was the one that resonated with me the most, because of their focus on the family as the cornerstone of society. For me that is true. That was the main reason for me to become a member of the CDA.’ After receiving an e-mail about the Amsterdam elections and going through the selection process, Imran became a candidate for CDA in Amsterdam.
As a candidate, Imran represents the new generation of CDA politicians. CDA, being a broad people’s party that leans neither too far to the left nor too far to the right, tends to fluctuate in its course depending on the circumstances and the party leadership. This makes it easier for the party to keep up with the times. However, the party does have an image problem, as Imran, who is a Muslim himself, explains: ‘Although some people see CDA as a religious party that is solely for Christians, CDA is not actually a religious party, but rather a party based on Christian values. However, these values are also Judaic, Islamic and even Humanistic values. Everybody kind of shares those values.’ As a young and new candidate, Imran hopes to make the CDA appeal again to a wider audience.
His plans for Amsterdam also reflect this. In his (and CDA’s) vision, the municipal government should focus on its core tasks: creating a safe, clean and prosperous Amsterdam. In this, Imran wants to focus on helping the groups that are now often forgotten in policy-making: young working people and disabled people. As Imran explains: ‘Young workers do the work essential for the city to function. They look after our elder people, they stock the shelves in the supermarkets and they deliver our food when we are hungry, but we don’t want to cook. They do essential work, but a lot of the work is done for low wages and in unsafe working environments, so those are problems that really need to be looked into and that need to be solved.’ According to Imran, these plans can help improve the working lives of students and young people in Amsterdam. He also wants the municipal government to focus on making Amsterdam more accessible for people with a disability: ‘Amsterdam, is a very busy city. More than 800,000 people live here, and on top of that Amsterdam is full of tourists. And because of that busyness is such a small place, it’s really hard for disabled people.’ For students, Imran also has plans, mostly related to student housing: ‘Finding student housing in Amsterdam is maybe an even bigger problem, than finding normal housing. If we talk about building houses for people to live in, we don’t take into account how many students we have in Amsterdam and how many students want to live in Amsterdam. So we definitely have to build and create more student housing.’
Although Imran one day wants to serve the country on the national level as the Minister of Social Affairs and Employment, he believes his political journey first needs to start at the local level: ‘I believe that the world is a really beautiful place with a lot of problems. So with that mindset, I strive to make the world a better place for how far I can impact that. And to start making the world a better place, I have to start in the greatest city of all: Amsterdam.’
Note: This interview was originally published on 14/03/2022 on YOUvA Today
