THE HAGUE: Dubbed 'Teflon Mark' because scandals slide off him like a pancake from a non-stick skillet, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has this time cooked up a crisis of his own making. The longest-serving leader in the history of the Netherlands mystified Dutch media by setting a series of tough demands
THE HAGUE: Dubbed"Teflon Mark" because scandals slide off him like a pancake from a non-stick skillet, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has this time cooked up a crisis of his own making.
Whether he can survive the infighting and lead the party to win elections and the head of his fifth successive Dutch coalition government since 2010 remains to be seen.Ironically given the current chaos, Rutte has long traded on an image of stability and caution in the face of southern European debt, populism and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The youngest of seven children, his father Izaak was a trader, while his mother Mieke was the sister of Izaak's first wife, who died in a Japanese internment camp in World War II. Rutte became premier in 2010 and immediately showed what critics called a willingness to sacrifice principle for power, entering a coalition supported by the firebrand anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders that later collapsed.But critics said Rutte only managed to do so by pandering to the same anti-immigration rhetoric, with the issue now casting its shadow over his party once again.
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