Mark Rutte has starred in many anecdotes during the almost thirteen years as Prime Minister of the Netherlands, but one of the most reflective of his personality happened in June 2018. Rutte arrived at the Dutch Parliament with a coffee in hand and, when going through security, the coffee fell and flooded the lobby. The liberal politician didn’t just pick up the glass, he took the mop from a female employee to clean up the liquid and then finished the job with a mop that he ran across the floor with his hands. Meanwhile, the working women watched and applauded.
Gestures like this, of naturalness, closeness to the people and austerity, made the prime minister who rides a bicycle to the official office achieve a high level of sympathy from the public, which helped him win four consecutive elections for the center-right Partit Popular for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).
At the age of 56, yesterday Rutte surprised with the announcement of his withdrawal from Dutch politics, which will take effect after the elections in November and the subsequent formation of a new government and will therefore exceed thirteen years of mandate He is already the prime minister who has held the position for the longest time in the history of the Netherlands, and surpasses the almost twelve years of the Democrat Ruud Lubbers (1982-1994).
The prime minister did not cycle to the royal palace on Saturday to hand in his resignation to King William, but did so in an old Saab that he usually has parked in front of his home in The Hague, where he has lived alone for many years before arriving in power
The Teflon politician – or Teflon Mark, as he is known in Holland – this time could not detach himself from the hot pan of migration policy, which ended on Friday with the fourth and last cabinet. This survivor, who overcame scandals, controversies and political swings seeking consensus and allying himself with the left and the right to continue on the surface, resigned because he could not get the four parties of his Government to agree to accept Rutte’s own proposal to severely restrict the family reunification of parents, children or couples of immigrants as asylum seekers.
All the consensus and multi-colored alliances that Rutte achieved at home – despite never having achieved an absolute majority – transmuted into hard blockades at community level. The Teflon man was Mr. Not in Brussels to try to apply to the European Union the same austerity that he practices personally, always aligned with Denmark, Sweden or Austria to put limits on wasteful southern countries, such as Spain.
On the other hand, the differences were of a different nature with the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, the only ruler longer than Rutte in the European Union. The two might have agreed on migration issues, but they clashed bitterly over civil rights – “European values”, according to Rutte – due to Hungary’s attacks and policies against homosexuals. The mildest thing Orbán said about Rutte was that he “hates Hungarians” and called the Dutchman Dutch guy (the boy, or perhaps more derogatorily, the Dutch guy).
“There has been speculation in recent days about the reasons; the only answer is: the Netherlands”, said Rutte yesterday during a speech in Congress, when he announced that in the next elections he will not head the list of the VVD, the party he has led for 17 years. Afterwards, reporters asked him about rumors that he would be a candidate to succeed Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg as NATO Secretary General or that he would take up a position in the EU. Rutte was ambiguous: he ruled it out in the short term, but left the door open.
When asked what was the moment that marked him most during the four governments, Rutte did not highlight the pandemic, but the air tragedy of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on July 17, 2014, which was hit by a missile launched from Ukrainian Donbass, in which the 298 occupants died, the vast majority Dutch.
Born in 1967 in The Hague, Rutte is the eldest of six siblings in a Protestant family. After studying History at the University of Leiden, he worked for ten years in the human resources department of the multinational Unilever while pursuing a career within the VVD.
He jumped into professional politics in 2002, first as Secretary of State for Employment and Social Affairs, and then for Higher Education and Science, as well as deputy. In 2010, at the age of 43, he won the elections at the head of the VVD and became prime minister with the support of, among others, the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV).
Rutte is leaving Dutch politics and it is not known whether he will end up in an international position. For now, the only thing he did confirm yesterday is that he will increase social studies classes at a secondary school, where he has continued to teach once a week while he has been prime minister.
