THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the Netherlands’ longest-serving premier, said Monday he will leave politics after an early general election sparked by a dispute over migration that led to his government’s resignation.
His decision means the end of nearly 13 years in power for the conservative leader sometimes called ” Teflon Mark ” because scandals that plagued his four different administrations did not stick to him.
Rutte, the 56-year-old leader of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, or VVD, announced his decision at a hastily arranged parliamentary debate to discuss the fall of his latest governing coalition.
“Yesterday morning I made a decision that I will not be available again as a leader of the VVD. When a new Cabinet takes office after the elections, I will leave politics,” he said.
Rutte called it a “personal decision, regardless of the developments in recent weeks.” There was no immediate indication who might replace Rutte as leader of the VVD. The party’s parliamentary faction is led by Sophie Hermans, Rutte’s former political assistant.
No date has yet been set for the election, but it is not expected before October or November.
In the 27-nation European Union, only Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been in charge of a country longer than Rutte, but their leadership styles could not be more different.
Orban, in power for a full 13 years and counting, has turned Hungary into his vision of an “illiberal democracy” and increasingly smothered all dissent, while Rutte navigated a Western democratic system at its most eclectic and exuberant.
But the Dutch prime minister’s four-party ruling coalition resigned Friday after failing to agree on a package of measures to rein in migration, an issue that often has divided the EU as a whole. Rutte said it was a unanimous decision prompted by “irreconcilable differences” among the partner parties.
Supporters and opponents alike called it the end of an era.
With uncanny political savvy, Rutte at times managed to twist the arms of not just his coalition partners but also opposition lawmakers to pass new policies and remain in charge of governments that provided enough glue to hold together his politically fractured nation of nearly 18 million.
In the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Dutch parliament, no fewer than 20 parties are represented. To some extent, the diverse lineup reflects the European trend of the political center losing ground to voices on the far left and particularly the far right.
Rutte steered the Netherlands through crises ranging from flooding to the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014. Even his political opponents praised his handling of the aftermath of the plane’s downing, which killed about 200 Dutch citizens.
Rutte also became known for seeking forgiveness for past Dutch government policies.
When a parliamentary commission said that governments, several of which Rutte led, had put energy profits before the safety of people in northern Groningen province, where earthquakes from gas extraction destroyed homes and the lives of families, he apologized.
“We stand here cap in hand,” he said earlier this year.
Two years ago, his third government also resigned to take responsibility for a scandal involving investigations into child welfare payments that wrongly labeled thousands of parents as fraudsters, again hurting hundreds of innocent families. He pledged his government would continue working to compensate affected parents as quickly as possible.
“We are of one mind that if the whole system has failed, we all must take responsibility,” Rutte said.
Rutte’s party nevertheless won the ensuing election, and he formed his fourth government with the same four parties that made up the coalition that collapsed last week. This time, though, the political rot set in early, and after 1½ years, he was not only unable to hold together his coalition, he was accused by some of setting up its fall with demands that at least one party could not accept.
Despite the many scandals that tarnished his governments, Rutte remained popular among voters. His departure throws the election wide open and could open the door for a shift to the political left of further to the right.
Jesse Klaver, leader of the opposition Green Left party, called it a “historic day” but said that ultimately, as Rutte’s fourth and final coalition crumbled in acrimony, “his departure was unavoidable.”
Such was Rutte’s acumen to reconcile political fire and ice that over the past years, he has been tipped both to become leader of the European Union and NATO chief. He has not taken the bait, yet.
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Casert reported from Brussels.
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