'We need a new kind of politics' Dutch MP tops election polls just three months after starting party

The party that has swept to the forefront of Dutch politics needs no symbol; instead it has the face of its founder, Pieter Omtzigt, gazing benevolently into the future.

- Senay Boztas , Pjotr Sauer 

At the first members' meeting of the New Social Contract (NSC) party last week, 800 people had a name badge with a portrait of Omtzigt on the back.

Their leader, standing to give a 40-minute speech on a central dais, was lit with a blazing white light from above and the applause was rapturous. Clearly, it is Omtzigt's charisma and profile as a prominent, occasionally troublesome, backbench MP which have propelled the three-monthold NSC to the top of polls a week before the Netherlands' general election on 22 November.

Since membership opened three weeks ago the centrist party has amassed 7,200 members and this meeting, in a former carriage shed in Amersfoort, European city of the year, was their first chance to meet one another and their leader.

The MP, who provoked the fall of a previous government and has made a reputation of standing up for the victimised against powerful institutions' mistakes, claims to be slightly dazed by events. "I'm very surprised about the speed at which all this is going," he told media outlets. "You're looking at a party which had five members three weeks ago, now we have 7,000. This is the first time we meet and in two weeks we have an election."

He might sound like a classic politician with a good line in faux humility, but this 49-year-old from the eastern town of Enschede is a little different. He has "a firm preference", for instance, for leading his party from parliament rather than becoming a prime minister in the event of his party being the largest in parliament.

Omtzigt had a 19-year career as an MP for the Christian Democratic Appeal before playing a key role in uncovering a scandal concerning childcare benefits in which 31,000 parents were falsely accused.