Had-je-me-maar

Cornelis "Nelis" de Gelder (22 November 1856 – 30 November 1931), popularly known by his nickname Had-je-me-maar ('If only you had me' in English) was a Dutch homeless person, street performer and political candidate. He became a local celebrity in Amsterdam through his street performances of a 1916 song by Louis Davids, from which he earned his nickname. In 1921, he was picked as the lead candidate for the Free Socialist Group, later the Rapaille Partij, a political party seeking to ridicule the Dutch democratic political system and the electorate by nominating a homeless alcoholic for electoral office. He was successfully elected, though did not take up office.

Early life Cornelis de Gelder was born on 22 November 1856 in Amsterdam, in the Batavierstraat. Little is known about his early life. De Gelder initially worked as a bricklayer, and later as a pipefitter. De Gelder was arrested for the first time in 1873 and 1874 for stealing a bedsheet and a bottle of liquor, in 1885 he was sentenced to 3 months in prison and a 15 guilders fine for assault.

De Gelder was married three times. His first marriage was to Ludiena Johanna Meijer in 1877, who died shortly after, leaving De Gelder a single father. He remarried a second time to a woman who died in the late 1880s, after which he became responsible for the care of five children. He married another woman in 1889, but that marriage fell apart as well. To earn money, he took on various odd jobs, including as a traveling acrobat and performer at local fairs. He would stand in a park in Amsterdam-Noord, where passersby could pay for an attempt to grab a coin out of a bucket filled with electrically-charged water. Later, he found work as an itinerant slipper salesman. From the age of six, De Gelder would take his son to bars where his son was made to perform acrobatic tricks and play the flute for bar patrons.

According to his son, De Gelder was a neglectful parent and an alcoholic of a "vagrant nature", and despite taking his father in for a few months was forced to cut him off after De Gelder had caused disturbances in the neighborhood. His son would later be fired from his job due to the controversy surrounding his father's run for office. De Gelder later spent time in a poorhouse. In late November 1931 Had-je-me-maar was hit by a car while crossing the street at the Leidse Hout park, and died of his wounds in the hospital on 31 November 1931.

In the decades after his run for office, the example of Had-je-me-maar and the Rapaille Partij became used as a warning about new political parties by the media and established political parties. The term "Hadjememaar" became a synonym in the Netherlands for unseriousness and vulgarity in politics.