A new Dutch government took power yesterday, with 38-year-old centrist Rob Jetten sworn in as the nation’s youngest-ever prime minister and the first openly gay one.
Jetten pulled off a stunning election win in October, coming from behind to dethrone the far-right Freedom Party (PVV) led by firebrand politician Geert Wilders by a razor-thin margin.
The snap election was called after the PVV withdrew from the previous coalition, the Netherlands’ most right-wing government in recent history, which lasted just 11 months.
Photo: AFP
Jetten’s D66 has teamed up with the center-right CDA party and the liberal VVD to form a coalition, but will fall nine seats short of a parliamentary majority with only 66 seats.
The parties took 117 days to form their coalition — much less than the 223 days taken to form the previous government.
After his election victory, Jetten said that it was possible to beat populist movements “if you campaign with a positive message for your country.”
On the campaign trail, he said he wanted to “bring the Netherlands back to the heart of Europe because without European cooperation, we are nowhere.”
In a manifesto published last month, the three parties pledged full support for Ukraine and vowed to live up to the nation’s NATO spending commitments.
Although the new government is not as far to the right as the previous one, it still has a “right-wing signature,” said Sarah de Lange, a professor of politics at Leiden University.
“The coalition has opted for budget cuts rather than running a deficit to finance any investments it wants to make” and there is “substantial continuity between the immigration plans of the new government and the previous one,” De Lange said.
The parties have pledged to press ahead with a crackdown on migration, including measures such as tougher rules on family reunification. They also want to cut social benefits, including unemployment benefits, to help finance proposed investments in the military and defence.
However, since the coalition will rely on support from opposition parties to pass legislation, “getting larger reforms passed by parliament might take longer than usual,” De Lange said.
Jetten and his Cabinet were sworn in yesterday by King Willem-Alexander at the Huis Ten Bosch in The Hague.
The prime minister was initially more keen on a broad coalition, including the left-leaning Groenlinks/PvdA, but this was firmly opposed by VVD leader Dilan Yesilgoz.
Wilders, who shook Europe’s political scene to the core with a shock election win in November 2023, saw his fortunes plummet in last year’s election.
His PVV party plunged from 37 seats in 2023 to 26 seats after what was widely seen as a lackluster campaign.
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