Henri M. said:
I understand that all the attention is on 'poor sheep Margarita' and 'brutal wolf Edwin'. Sensation, scandal, etc.
But THE most interesting thing of the whole affair was that a complete machinery of state went into working, totally without any knowledge of the responsible ministers and initiated by the royal court.
It is often said that Queen Beatrix is a powerful monarch. However her formal power is pretty limited by the constitution. But her informal power, something which is very hard to categorize in words, is totally outshining her formal power. The 'Margarita-affair' shockingly brought it to the surface.
The director of the Kabinet der Koningin (the Queen's Cabinet Office) asked the director of the General Intelligence- and Security Service to investigate Edwin de Roy van Zuydewijn.
[..]That was the shocking revelation. That such a formidable power came to the surface and became visible for all Dutchmen.
Well I guess Beatrix's power as a monarch is food for thought for an entire thread really, but since imo it is relevant to the Edwin story, I'll comment a bit on it here.
For one thing I don't think that Beatrix was the one initiating the investigation into Edwin. Why on the planet would she have?
First of, Henri M., I disagree on one thing: she does NOT have that kind of power behind the scenes that you mention. I just don't buy that behind the scenes, she would act like a Dutch kindof Stazi, investigating people who don't please her personally. Come on. I mean, let's not get into Edwin's delusional line of thinking here: he's such a conspiracy theorist, if it were up to him, he'd get it into his head & have us believe that, say, Beatrix plotted with, say, George W. Bush, the Pope and Elvis (didn't you hear? He's still alive
) on a plot to have him, Edwin, 'taken care of', mafia style.
I'd like to think that Beatrix would have better things to do than plot against an obvious idiot such as Edwin de Roy.
As for her formal power, she does have a bit more power, than, say, Elizabeth of England. Why? For one, because till this day, all mayors of all towns in the Netherlands and all governers of all the provinces in that country are NOT elected directly by the people, but appointed by the queen instead (admittedly the candidates are typically suggested by elected officials). This means that de facto, these appointees only are accountable to the queen only, and not to the people.
THis is all fine and good, but if one claims, as the Netherlands does, that you are a real democracy, this is one area where a lot of (foreign as well as Dutch domestic) eyebrows are raised over. ARe you really a democracy if you cannot even elect the mayor of your own town? Who, instead, is appointed by the monarch, a person BORN into the position, not chosen by the people?
This is how it could happen that a new mayor of the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, was an ex-boyfriend of the queen (albeit of course one from her pre-Claus days), who was living in the Hague at the time of his appointment as mayor of Amsterdam, and, mind you, he refused to move to Amsterdam despite the fact he'd been appointed as mayor! (though he later did, because of protests)
Ok, what does this have to do with Edwin de Roy van Z.?
That he does have a point when he says that the Dutch queen has powers that a reasonable democracy wouldn't want to give a non-elected monarch. But that's it.
All the same, I don't agree with him that there is some sort of conspiracy going on, on the contrary. I think that although Edwin had some strings on his bow (or whatever the expression is!) in terms of the Dutch monarchy, he's completely delusional about so many of the things he's contended over the years, that no one, indeed, takes him seriously any more. He is a fantasist on so many levels and the problem is (for himself) that he really seems to believe what he claims.
It is hard to believe, for me, that he brainwashed Margarita the way he managed to do. But I guess people are suckers for conspiracy theories, even when these theories are totally 'out there' and regard the members of one's own family.
When does it end? 
